THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

THE COCONUT PLANTER

By THE SAME AUTHOR

TIME O' DAY
PETER PIPER

London : Casseli &' Co., Ltd.

The

Coconut Planter

BY

D. EGERTON JONES

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published 1916

The Coconut Planter

CHAPTER I

Did you ever read that old Celtic fairy tale about the
henwife's three daughters? They came, you know, in
turn to their mother and said: "Mither, bake me a
bannock and roast me a collop, for I'm gaun awa' to
seek my fortune." Then, when the mother had done
so, they looked out of the door and saw a coach and
six, or something like that, coming along the road,
and the mother said : "Well, yon's for you." And the
daughter promptly got in and off she went.

Well, that's how I feel, only I haven't any mother
or bannock — or collop either, whatever collops may be
— and my coach and six is just the Morinda. That's
the name of a flower that blooms only once in seven
years in the islands, and of the boat I'm on. It's to
the islands I'm going— to seek my fortune.

I wonder what I'll find.

But it's the most scrumptious, thrilly feeling going
into the world to seek your fortune. Every now and
then, when I'm sitting up on the boat deck like (his,
I simply have to smile at the sea; I feel so Drakish.
You know what I mean by Drakish, of course — Francis
Drakish; I'm sure that's how he must have felt when
he set out on the adventure that circumnavigated him
round the world.

It's an I-don't-care-what-becomes-of-me, fill-'em-up-
again sort of mood. And you want to do something

2 The Coconut Planter

exciting and hilarious this very minute. I'd like an
airship to come along, or some whales, or even to go
for a long walk. But you can't walk far on this boat,
she's too small ; she's only about two thousand tons,
and by the time you've been round the deck twice
you've butted into every soul on board, and you feel
as if you were doing a parade before the cages at the
Zoo, and not sure which side of the bars you are either.

So I sit and smile at the sea. I smile at the sea
because I don't know anyone else yet to smile at. We
have only been out of Sydney an hour or two, so
naturally I haven't so far become acquainted with any-
one on board. I wonder if there are any nice people
among them. You can never tell from the first glance
at a crowd of passengers, can you ? They look such
a motley mob and not a bit individual ; they all seem
alike— just passengers. It's only after you've seen
them for a day or two they seem to get sorted out into
persons.

The Heads have quite disappeared now. Good-bye,
old Sydney. I wonder when I'll see you again. We
left at midday, and all the way down out through the
Harbour I leaned up against the rail in the sunshine,
just devouring the last glimpses of Neutral Bay. That's
where I used to live. I used to hate it too, and long
to get away, and I'm jumping with joy to be setting
out to see the world. Yet I had to wink my eyes quite
hard once or twice as I saw it fade into the distance.
How sentimental ! But just now and again, you know,
I feel the teeniest bit lonely. Now, then. Sunny Shale
— when you're out on a big, big spree to see LIFE.
Do observe the capitals !

Which being translated means I'm going up to
Papua to start a coconut plantation.

Yes, I'm going to make my fortune. I've been
through my plans very carefully. The Government is

The Coconut Planter 3

trying to encourage settling there, and you can get land
for next to nothing— a hundred acres for one pound.
Ii really sounds absurd, but, of course, you've got
to clear and plant it and then wait for your trees to
get to bearing age. I suppose it will cost me a good
deal to get it going, but plantations are frightfully
profitable once you do. Why, they make coconut oil
from them for one thing, and copra cake for cattle, and
soap, and even butter now, I'm told.

Anyway, that's how I'm investing my thousand
pounds. Relations are quite useful when they are dead,
aren't they? That isn't really as heartless as it sounds,
but I've never had any relations at all to know, so you
can't expect me to love them. I can't remember my
mother, and scarcely my father, although I used to
see him once every year or so. He used to take me
to the pictures, or to the theatre, one night when he
came to Sydney, but I haven't seen him for six years.
Seems funny to mislay your father like that, doesn't it?
I expect he must now be dead.

I was brought up at a boarding school, and, when
my father didn't turn up at the end of my seventeenth
year, they didn't know what to do with me. I had no
one to go to and no market value. What's the
average schoolgirl's equipment worth in hard cash?
Why, just nothing at all. But the headmistress was
a little fond of me, as I had been there so many years,
and she hadn't the heart to turn me out of doors, so
they made me a kind of assistant teacher, paid with
my board and keep and about twopence ha'penny a
week thrown in for pocket-money.

I don't suppose I sound very grateful, but I don't
think charity bread ever tastes very sweet. I expect
I wasn't worth more to them, and it was decent of them
to take me at all. Still, they must have assistant
teachers; they are cheaper for the little ones than

4 The Coconut Planter

properly qualified ones, and, anyway, I will say this
for myself — that I worked hard enough. I couldn't
bear being more beholden to them than I had to.

But it isn't easy to teach girls you've been a fellow-
student with ; and always at the back of my mind, for
a long time, too, was the feeling that I'd been
deserted by my father, for at first we couldn't be sure
he was dead. But I think he must be now. He was a
naturalist who used to go collecting all over the Pacific,
and he was often in danger.

So there I stuck, at the old school, for the next six
years, teaching day in and day out for the same starva-
tion salary, though they increased it a bit each year till,
when I left, I was drawing the munificent salary of
forty-five pounds a year for teaching from nine till half-
past three every day, and part of my evenings taken up
correcting homework and my turn at dormitory duty.

Generous pay, isn't it?

And there are dozens of us who live like that. Of
course, B.A.'s and other degreed persons do get a
living wage, but the rank and file of us — oh, well, it's
done with now, thank God, and never, never will I go
back to it again. I'll drown myself first. Why, it's
not life at all, it's mere existence, drab-grey crawling
along from dreary day to day, and night to uneventful
night. Some don't mind it, but oh ! to me it seems
dreadful to let life go by like that when you never know
if you'll have another, and the world is so big and
wonderful, and there's so much to see in it. I love
colour, scarlet and skies and sun; maybe it's because
I was born in the tropics.

And now I'm going to see it all, I'm going to see
it all, and I owe it to Aunt Susan. Blessed Aunt Susan !
I almost feel I love her, for, although she lived in Eng-
land, and had never seen me in her life, when she died
she left me a thousand pounds.

The Coconut Planter 5

A whole thousand, think of it ! I couldn't believe
it at first. And I'm going to make my fortune with it
and see the world and do as I please. I'll be free!
Free ! My, you've got to have been a slave for years to
guess what it's going to mean to me. Nobody belongs
to me and I belong to nobody, and, like the old Miller
of Dee, I care for nobody, and I'm not going to either.

Do I sound heartless? Sometimes I think I am.
I'm only twenty-three, but life has been hard on me,
and I feel much more than that. I'm only a girl to
look at, but if, instead only of the outside, people could
see down into my soul, they would find it wrinkled
and haggard and sick to death. Shoo, Sunny 1 you
sound quite dramatic. Thank goodness my face doesn't
look that, anyway.

I dare say I deserve it all. Perhaps I'm suffering
for my sins in a past life, since I can't see I've ever
done anything this time to bring down on me quite
the bad luck I've had. But "just is the Wheel, swerv-
ing not a hair." That's in "Kim," isn't it? Ever
since I read it, it has haunted me; that and another I
found somewhere: "The fate of every man have we
bound about his neck."

Those are my mottoes, and they're very comforting
when you feel rebellious.

I suppose I ought to be resigned and bear my
crosses cheerfully, but it's when not only your heart,
but your pride stings, that the hardest pull comes.
You see, it hurts to admit even to myself that I'm a
deserted wife. It doesn't sound pretty, does it? That
kind of statement makes everybody ask immediately :
"What did she do?" It doesn'i sound convincing to
reply that I didn't do anything at all. They immedi-
ately retort: "Well, what did you leave undone?"
Oh, yes, everyone believes, prima facie, the woman
must be at fault. Perhaps I was — for marrying him at

6 The Coconut Planter

all. There, Sunny, cynical again ! And I told you we
were going to be youthful and sweet and twenty once
more.

That's what I was when I married — twenty. Old
enough to know better, I suppose. Ah, well, I do
now, so perhaps the lesson was worth the price. What
a fool I am to let it sting me still, but to admit it, even
to myself, hurts just awfully.

I've never admitted it to a living soul else. Some-
times I wish I could bring myself to do so; then, per-
haps, it wouldn't lie so much like a little cold hurt
on my chest. . . . Sunny, if you don't stop senti-
mentalising this second you shan't say another word.

Only three years ago since I was a girl ! It seems
centuries. Yes, I'm hard now, but it's only natural.
You see, some things hurt so badly that you've either
got to die or harden till you can bear them. I didn't
die, so I hardened. I had to.

I don't think it would have been so dreadful if I
had ever openly been his wafe, but I wasn't. I have
never written my new name excepting in the register at
the church ; all the letters he ever sent me were ad-
dressed to Miss Shale. It seemed funny when inside
they were signed "Your loving husband," and I never
dared wear my ring except at nights when I was in
bed. I used to put it on every night and lean my
cheek on it till it hurt trying to pretend it was Terry
beside me. Of course, I was a fool. Any girl is a fool
who consents to a secret wedding. I can see that now;
but when you are young and in love . . . Ah well, I've
paid, anyway.

If I had known as much then about men as I do
now I might have foreseen how it would end, but I
didn't, and there's no more to be said. I hadn't had
much to do with men ; I hadn't the chance of meeting
them — situated as I was. I dare say it was morbid

The Coconut Planter 7

pride, but somehow I couldn't bear to mix with the
older girls at school after I had to stop being a scholar
myself and help teach, and so I hadn't many friends.

Now and again they asked me out and I met their
fathers and brothers and cousins, but I never cared
much for any of them till I met Terry ; and I was so
stiff and cold in my manner that they didn't care, for
me either. I was so horribly afraid of being patronised.
I dare say it was little-minded, but you try being a
penniless dependent and see how you behave after a
few snubs.

But Terry was different from the beginning. I think
It was his eyes that won me first — they were so blue
and so merry ; and then I loved his sister. I don't believe
I would ever have let him know me more than the
rest if it hadn't been for Cicely. She adored him. She
was always talking about him — even before we met ;
and according to her he was the cleverest, handsomest,
best-natured brother in the world. Cicely was only
eleven, but, in a way, I was more friendly with her
than anyone else in the school. She took a violent
fancy to me, as some youngsters do to a grown-up girl
(it's a kind of hero worship), and I grew to love her
back. And so, I suppose, that's how I got interested
in him before we met. I felt anyone Cicely loved like
that must be nice.

It's no use explaining how it happened. I met him
at their place first. Cicely was always trying to make
me go there, for she was only a day scholar. A'nd I
never will forget that night : it all seems mixed up
in a kind of golden haze now — the laughter in his eyes
and the pride in his mother's and father's, and little
Cicely hovering about like a beneficent butterfly, unable
to tear herself away from his side.

He had been away for years in Honolulu. He was
in the Amalgamated Wireless, but he'd come home to

8 The Coconut Planter

change into the Commonwealth Radio service, as he
was the only son, and his people didn't like him being
so far away, and there was little prospect of his being
ever in Australia if he stayed with the Amalgamated.

I suppose it was what people call love at first sight.
It was with me, anyway. Maybe Cicely's tales had
prepared my mind, and I had loved an imaginary hero
who bore his name long before I met him. And then
he was so big and fair and had that tender bullying
way with him that women adore.

Even then, though, infatuated as I was, I hated
the way he always kept his tenderness for when we were
alone. In front of his people he was merely polite,
but he always soothed me by explaining that we couldn't
get engaged; the company didn't like their men marry-
ing young, and if we did announce it he'd ten to one
be sent away to some God-forsaken place hundreds of
miles away from me, whereas if we kept it secret they
might leave him in Sydney, and then how jolly that
would be for both of us. And if even his people knew
if would be sure to leak out somehow ; it was only safe
while no one knew but our two selves.

And it was a happy three months while it lasted,
even though it was a long scheming and plotting and
lying to be able to meet. Perhaps that was partly what
made it so sweet and our very own. . . . And then,
after all, he wasn't left in Australia; he was ordered
to Papua, to the wireless station at Port Moresby, and
he begged me to marry him before he went. We
couldn't do it openly because he wasn't getting quite
a big enough salary; the company might have made a
fuss, and his people would have for certain. But he
soon would be, he said, and then he'd send for me,
and life would be bliss and kisses. Everything in the
garden would be lovely.

I can't help being bitter and horrid when I remem-

The Coconut Planter 9

ber. But what's the use of going over all his argu-
ments? They wouldn't convince you, or me either —
now. But then, I was three years younger and in love.

So we were married a fortnight before he sailed.
But it didn't make me happy even for that, although
i think it did him, but men are different. I was torn
by jealousy every minute he spent away from me. To
his people and everyone else he was a gay bachelor still,
and old friends used to ask him to dances and give
farewell parties for him, and the girls who lived next
door asked him round afternoons to tennis . . . my
husband. And I was teaching busily at school.

Do you wonder I writhed and cried my eyes out
the nights he was away from me ? But when he was
with me I forgot everything but him. And then there
was always the lying to be able to meet him and the
terror that our plans might go awry and betray us.
Sometimes I wished they would, but it would have
ruined his chances, Terry said, and I couldn't do that.
Oh, once we'd done it I wished a thousand times we
hadn't, but it was too late then, and I thought that,
when he got on and sent for me, it would all come
right, as he said.

And I couldn't even go down to see him off. Other
girls went — old friends of his, old sweethearts, too, I
dare say — but I who was his wife had to stay quietly
at school teaching arithmetic. Sometimes I wonder if
Hell holds anything like that hour I spent before
Terry's boat sailed. Cicely told me about it next day
at school.

Of course it happened, as anyone with a little more
knowledge of the world than I had might have fore-
seen. His letters began to get irregular. I w-onder if
Terry could ever guess how he agonised me when he
started. At first I expostulated, and he would write me
the tenderest, sweetest apology ; he would have been

10 The Coconut Planter

working extra late and was most frightfully tired and
hadn't felt up to writing. And then he would miss a
post again.

I explained to him how miserable I felt when the
letter didn't come. I told him his letters were all I
had to live for in my grey little life. I pleaded with
him to be more regular. He was always tenderly re-
pentant, and — he would miss again. And then I neither
expostulated nor pleaded any more; I just endured it.

Not that Terry meant to be cruel. I'm sure he
didn't. But he found life over there pleasant and his
time w^as well occupied. How could he understand that
he was all my life when I was only a little bit of his?
And there were other girls there ... I used to lie
awake at night, seeing him go moonlight walks with
them ; he used to tell me about them quite frankly
and say how he wished when he was with them it was
with me.

And then I would wonder if sometimes he did not
regret me and wish he were as free as people thought
him. Once a rumour came through that he was engaged
to a girl over there. At that I did burst over with
jealousy; I couldn't help it; I had been keeping it
dammed up so long. But Terry only laughed about it.
He said you couldn't help yarns like that getting about
in a small place; it was a regular hotbed of gossip.

Of course, I didn't pay any attention to the rumour
itself ; what hurt was knowing Terry must really have
seen a lot of her to have given rise to such a tale.
And he never seemed to get any nearer sending for me.
After a while he stopped referring to it; and then I
knew he had stopped caring, at least, that he couldn't
care as he had. But I didn't die as I thought I would.
It was he who died. Perhaps it was just as well since
I couldn't, and there was no other way to set him free.
And I didn't cry when I knew. I was long past that.

The Coconut Planter ii

1 only heard of his death through Cicely. He was
murdered inland by natives; the judge up there wrote
down to his people.

Cicely wore black for him, but 1 couldn't. I hadn't
the right. I was only an unacknowledged wife whose
husband had wearied of her.

There, what's the use of raking it all up now?
He's dead, and they say death cancels all debts ; but
somehow^ I don't think it does, not for those who live on.
Of course, it was half my fault, but Terry didn't play
me fair, and, somehow, I can't quite forgive him. He's
taught me to distrust the world, and that seems to me,
in a way, a sad lesson for a girl of twenty-three to have
mastered. I'm sorry often I feel like that, but I do,
and it's no use playing the hypocrite with myself. I'd
give lots at times to be a merry-hearted girl like the
others on board, looking out for fun and laughter, but
I'm not, and I never can be again.

That's why I sometimes think 1 hate Terry.

Still, I am out for fun — you bet I am. I'm going
to squeeze every drop I can out of life now, and I don't
care whom I hurt in the process. Who cared whether I
was hurt or not ? There are two men on board w^ho
look as if they had already found me interesting. We
shall see. I'll take it out on other men for what Terry
made me suffer.

How perfectly beastly that does sound ! I don't
quite mean it, I suppose, but I do in a way. Some-
times I do want to hurt someone; it's when I can
see Cicely in her black frock crying and I can't cry.

CHAPTER II

I've just finished a game of deck golf. The chief
officer, at whose table I sit, asked me to play; he is
a nice, quiet, reserved man, and has a wife in Sydney
to whom he seems devoted. It makes me feel very catty
to hear a man speak of his wife like Mr. Fraser does.
Terry could never talk to anyone about me.

Our two opponents were a Miss Brough and a Mr.
Close — Nevil his Christian name is, because I heard
another man call him by it. I say man, but he is really
only a boy and his name is Billy Burroughs. He and
Mr. Close seem to be travelling together. I am going
to like little Billy enormously; I can feel it. He was
sitting on the hatch reading while we played and occa-
sionally applauding our strokes. I've noticed him
before; he is smallish and has nice brown eyes, doggy
eyes rather. I don't mean soft and sloppy like a
spaniel's, but they've got that lively, trustworthy twinkle
you see in a fox terrier.

I haven't exactly made his acquaintance yet, though
he dived under one of the lifeboats once to get my
wooden block, which had rolled there and nearly gone
overboard. It's simply awful the way they will insist
on going overboard. There's a game we've been play-
ing a lot these last three days — throwing little rubber
rings on to numbers, and we've lost more than half the
rings already; the chief officer, Mr. Fraser, is very dis-
gusted about it. But the top deck of the Morinda h^ no
boarding round the vdge at all, and things slide over
before you can catch your breath, let alone catch them.

12

The Coconut Planter 13

Everybody is very energetic in the game line, for
we are having delightfully calm weather; the sky is like
a Wedgwood plate and the sea its copy. We have just
passed the dearest little island not far off. As we went
by the seagulls rose off it like swarms of cockle-shells.

Isn't deck golf fun ? I can dodge the bunkers beauti-
fully, and I have a fairly straight eye, but I can't putt
at all, and I always lose strokes at the holes. It was
a most exciting game and we just won, because Mr.
Fraser plays like a book. Miss Brough didn't like
being beaten, though ; she looked quite sulky as we
finished, and stalked off without saying anything to
Mr. Close. Isn't it absurd of people to lose their
tempers over a game ? Certainly Mr. Close did play
carelessly, and he was a bit languid in his manner.
If he'd been my partner he'd have exasperated me, I
dare say, but I don't think, all the same, I'd have shown
it as she did.

I don't think I should like Mr. Close much. He's
nothing remarkable, neither good nor bad looking, but
he dresses carelessly, even for a boat, and I do like
men nicely dressed — ^Terry always looked splendid in
his clothes — and I'm inclined to think his upper teeth
are false — Mr. Close's, I mean, not Terry's; and I hate
false teeth. I think they are nearly as deceitful as a
cork leg.

And then his manner is very casual too ; I should
say he thought quite a deal of himself. His eyes are
the only nice thing about him, and I am quite sure we
should not get on. He talked to me a little after we
had finished the game, but his conversation was not
exciting. I would rather have been talking to little
Billy, who was lying on the hatch, playing with the
third mate's cockatoo. The third, whose name is Hen-
derson, is an Englishman with a passion for animals.
He never goes a trip without a pet of some kind or

B

14 The Coconut Planter

another, and when he was in Sydney a few days ago
he bought this bird for company ; he believed it was
a young one, as the dealer told him, but most of the
men on board swear it's an ancient grandfather and an
incurable bushie that will never learn anything. But
Mr. Henderson is not discouraged ; he brings it out on
the hatch for a sunning every day in its cage and talks
to it, but the bird so far has preserved a stony silence,
and views the world at large with settled distrust.

I've heard someone say Mr. Close and little Billy
are going up to Woodlark Island to a gold mine there.
It's rather a coincidence if they should be, isn't it?
For that's where I'm starting my coconut plantation;
but I haven't told them anything about that, and, any-
way, I expect I'll be miles farther inland than they
are.

So far the journey up promises to be nice, and there
seems a very pleasant-looking lot of people on board.
Most of them are going the round trip, I should
imagine, from Sydney up to Woodlark Island and back
again — it's the fashionable time of the year to do it.
1 here are two rather sweet old ladies on board ; at
least, they're not so very old, but I mean they are old
maids — only awfully sweet ones. I don't know their
surnames yet; I haven't placed them, but they call each
other Bee and Adelaide, and that is how most of us
refer to them. It's very cheeky of us, but you do things
on board ship you wouldn't elsewhere, don't you?
They seem to like me and I certainly like them.

The captain, too, is rather an amusing old soul. He is
fat and perfectly happy as long as he has half a dozen
women round him. And the scenery is simply glorious
in parts — bits of islands and green capes rising up
against our sides as if by magic. I can just sit and
look at it and be perfectly happy.

.We are not going to touch at any of the Queensland

The Coconut Planter 15

ports till we get to Cairns. We should be there in a
couple of days more. They say the scenery is really
beautiful there, but it's all beautiful to me. Remember,
I've never seen anything but the four walls of a
schoolroom for years, and now I'm on my own,
setting out to see the world. How could I help feeling
happy ?

CHAPTER III

We're all shaking down now and beginning to get
acquainted. They got up a euchre party last night,
and that's a splendid thing for working off the stiffness,
isn't it? Mr. Close won the men's prize and Miss
Brough got the girls'.

Mr. Close has been telling me about her. I don't
think he knew her before they came on board, but he
made himself known to her at once, for he had been
asked to look out for her on the trip. She is going up
to Woodlark to marry a friend of his, the manager of
the Kulumadau mine.

I think it's very brave of her — don't you ? — to go all
by herself to a place she doesn't know anything about.
At least, when I say all by herself, she has a little old
aunt with her for the sake of proprieties, but she doesn't
amount to much, she's one of those meek little souls
that are just born to suit other people's arrangements.

I don't think I'd go up to a man if he wouldn't
come for me, but I suppose circumstances won't always
adapt themselves to suit you, and Mr. Close says Mr.
Carlyle — that is the bridegroom's name — had arranged
to go down to Melbourne this month for her, but simply
couldn't get away, because there has been a lot of
trouble at the mine. He would have had to put it oft'
for another six months at least if she hadn't decided to
join him.

I suppose it would be disappointing to defer your
wedding when you had made up your mind to it and
got all your nice new clothes.

i6

The Coconut Planter 17

I think trousseaux are so fascinating. One of our
old girls, who was a pupil when I was, and who has
always kept up a desultory friendship with me since
she left, was married a few months back, and she made
me go and see hers.

She had the loveliest things. Petticoats and frocks
and frillies — oh, just one tumble of lace and ribbon on
the table. Even the kitchen towels and dusters looked
interesting; they seemed so new and important. I'm
afraid I disappointed her a little ; I tried to sound en-
thusiastic, but I couldn't help contrasting it with the
way I was married. Of course it was my own fault,
but — luck's a funny thing, isn't it?

They say Miss Brough's things are beautiful. She
has shown them, or some of them — for most are down
the hold — to several of the girls on board. She hasn't
invited me to look at them ; she started the other day
to tell me about herself, but, though I tried to be
cordial, I couldn't help feeling a little stiff. I don't
like people telling you about themselves on a few days'
acquaintance.

That's one thing I respect Mr. Close for. He
has come and sat beside me several times, and this
morning he challenged me to play him a game of deck
billiards, but through all our talk so far he has never
attempted to be intimate. I mean we talk nonsense,
but he never tries to find out who I am or what I am
going to do, nor does he give me any information about
himself. Some of the others have, and I appreciate the
difference. He keeps strictly to the situation, which is,
that we are simply two travellers who^-i chance has
flung together for a week or so, with plenty of topics
in the daily happenings to supply conversation.

It's a nice feeling to know he is not inquisitive, for
I can let myself go and be perfectly natural. I don't
have to worry as to what I should say or shouldn't,

i8 The Coconut Planter

lest a careless remark should start a veiled inquisition
from him.

He says somewhat startling things at times, but I
don't think he means to; he's just very outspoken, and
thinks afterwards, I suppose. He has a kind of tell-
the-truth-and-shame-the-prudes way with him, and he
says things so nicely that only a prude could really be
shocked.

Yesterday, you know, when somebody brought up
the question of stockings — I believe it was when Miss
Brough went by in rather an arresting pair — he re-
marked aloud that he liked silk stockings best; they
felt so nice. Of course, you could take his remark in
lots of ways — and he might have been including socks,
tmt I caught an unregenerate twinkle in his eye that
showed he was enjoying the prim look that appeared on
one or two countenances. I believe he rather enjoys
giving forth observations that make the old ladies
apprehensive as to what he'll say next.

But, you see, he never does say it, so there's no
need to worry, is there ?

CHAPTER IV

The routine was broken through a bit to-day. We
tried to land some passengers at Townsville. We didn't
go alongside the wharf — why, I don't know — but sent
them off in a launch from about a mile away, and as
there was a high sea running it was a regular business
getting them on board her.

We stood up on the top deck and watched. First,
they got the launch overside and ran it away quickly from
the ship's side, where it would have been smashed to
atoms, and then they couldn't get it back ^gain. They
had the gangway down over the water, but as fast as
Mr. Henderson, who was steering the launch, would
bring it round to the steps, the swell would be so big
it would lift him right away from them or else make
him afraid it would be stove in. And off he'd have to
go in a wide circle and come back for another try.

If he did it once he did it a dozen times, till we were
nearly helpless with laughter. And when at last some-
thing went wrong with the works and the launchboy
couldn't stop her at all, even his solemnity gave way,
and we could see him rocking with laughter too, as he
stood in the stern holding the tiller.

And on he went round and round through the waves
like a skater doing fancy curves. The captain got mad
and the poor passengers who wanted to land — there
were only two of them, both men — were shivering in
the wet, cold air. It was one of those raw days, and
a yellow-grey mist almost hid from us the distant
township.

19

20 The Coconut Planter

Finally, when they brought the launch round, swish-
ing the side of the Morinda for the thirteenth time, one
of the engineers leaped from the steps into her. He
landed in a heap, and must have skinned his hands and
knees, I should think, from the way he fell. Anyway,
he reduced the engine to a more docile frame of mind,
and at last they managed to bring the launch to rest
against the steps. They couldn't bring her right
against them, only near, for she bumped and heaved
too much. The passengers, therefore, had to leap, and
they both rolled head over heels into the launch, then
their luggage was dropped after them, and away they
went through the spray and rain.

I was glad I hadn't been wanting to get off at Towns-
ville, and Billy Burroughs said the same. He had
been standing with me watching the performance and
calling out derisive encouragement to Mr. Henderson
as he whirled by. They have become great friends; I
don't know whether it was the cockatoo that drew them
together or not, for I shouldn't have thought they would
mix; Mr. Henderson is very English, and Billy as Aus-
tralian as they make them. Still, maybe, Mr. Hender-
son's Englishness is more his manner than his real self.
Manner is harder to change than character, isn't it?
And sailors go to so many ports of the world so young
that their character gets cosmopolitan; at least, that's
how Billy explained it to me.

I talk to him more than anyone on board now. He
is such a nice youngster ; I knew he would be, and when
he and Mr. Henderson start fooling with each other
they are too absurd for words. Mr. Henderson is quiet
with most of us ; he never seems to speak to anyone
unless he has to, but sometimes early in the morning
or before dinner when the deck is cleared he and Billy
have a mock fight or practise gymnastics on the
stanchions overhead.

The Coconut Planter 21

Mr. Henderson will seize one of llie long wooden
poles we play golf with and say to Billy, "Wilt joust,
Sir Knight?" And then they prod each other all over
the deck, while I sit in a chair and act as Queen of
Beauty. To-night we were up there all by ourselves,
and at the end of the tournament, before I guessed what
they were about, they stooped down, lifted my chair
by its legs and carried me shoulder high up the deck.
They were perfectly mad, and I pulled their hair till
they let me down. I got a good handful on each side
and tugged hard. Billy thought it the loveliest joke,
but I was quite surprised at Mr. Henderson being so
frivolous.

I think he accepts me for Billy's sake. He is really
very nice to me, and he and Billy and Mr. Close asked
me to have a game of deck billiards with them this
morning. We had a real good go. I've taken an enor-
mous fancy to it, and I'm getting on at a great rate.
I've always been good at games. They were quite sur-
prised to find I could play so well, but I've been up
the last two mornings before breakfast practising
strokes by myself.

I knew^ they only asked me to play to be nice at
first; they didn't expect it w^ould be much of a game
with a girl in it, but when they found it was you
wouldn't believe the nice things they said. I felt posi-
tively conceited, and at the end they proposed we should
not stop, but have a second game — which we did.
"Consekens," as an old maid at school used to say, I
am feeling rather pleased with myself.

Oh-h ! that was a big yawn. I'd roll myself up
in my rug and go to sleep in this heavenly sun only
I expect Billy will be up in a few minutes. He told me
awhile ago he had to mend or adjust some instrument
that had got out of order that would take him about
twenty minutes, and after that, if I didn't want to do

22 The Coconut Planter

anything else, might lie come and talk to me ? I
laughed at his quaint punctiliousness and said "Yes."
So, of course, I'll have to stop awake.

Besides, I enjoy him talking. He doesn't seem
nearly as young now as I first thought, and he has a
fund of quiet humour that is very entertaining when he
gets going. He was telling me a bit about his boyhood
yesterday : his father was a cocky farmer with a good
tribe of youngsters, and between droughts and poverty
and the intermittent nature of their schooling Billy's
young life couldn't have been exactly a bed of roses.
Not that he has uttered one word of complaint ; he
doesn't seem to think he was to be pitied at all, but
I do. I think he's just a wonder to have won out to
where he already is, starting from such a handicap.

But Billy's memory seems to have shelved the hard-
nesses, and it's the fun they used to have that sticks
most in his memory. Their explorations in the scrub
on Saturdays and Sundays when they used to play
bushrangers in a huge cave not far from their farm,
the colts and even calves they used to practise riding
on. "And you know," said Billy, "if you can stick
on a bucking heifer you can ride anything on four
legs."

And then there were the snakes that used to come
and steal the eggs. I shuddered at that, but Billy told
me you get quite hardened to them. "The cheeky
brutes," he said, "got so that they'd not only steal
eggs, but they used to come and eat the fowls' food as
soon as we turned our backs. The boldest was a big
black fellow we could never catch. As soon as mother
put the warm pollard down and turned to a fresh batch,
out he'd come and she'd have to leave them to go and
chase him away so as to let the chickens get near it,"
His face smiled reminiscently. "I've seen her get that
mad she's thrown her pollard tin at him,"

The Coconut Planter 23

"Gracious," I said, "suppose he'd gone for her.
Was it poisonous ? "

"I don't know," said Billy, "but she was too cross
to care. In the end she had to get one of us ciiildren
to stand guard over the food with a stick till the fowls
had finished."

"I can't imagine myself ever getting used to snakes.
I've never seen one closer than through glass at the
Zoo or in the windows of that curio shop in Moore Street,
and I don't want to, either. I shouldn't be able to do
a thing, I know, from sheer fright."

Billy won't believe me when I say that. He says
I'm not nearly so big a coward as I think.

CHAPTER V

We'll be in Cairns the day after to-morrow, and,
although we haven't been away from Sydney a week
yet, 1 feel a different girl ; I'm really feeling a girl again
instead of an old woman, and it's a heavenly sensation.
I'd begun to think I never would feel it again, but some-
how the hurt has dulled a lot. I think it's having so many
people nice to me. Really they are, and I — don't giggle ;
really I am quite the belle of the boat. Of course, it's
not that I'm anything out of way in looks, but none of
the other girls happen to be any prettier than I. So
it's a case of "in the country of the blind the one-eyed is
kihg."

And everyone is so nice to me, and they tease me
dreadfully about my coconut plantation. I sit next to
the chief officer at table, and he is a terrible tease ;
we squabble politely all through the meals, and he tells
me about the dengue and malaria and scrub-itch, and
all the other tropical complaints I'm going to catch in
the islands. And he wants to know how a little bit of a
girl like me expects to boss niggers around and live out
in the bush by myself, without another white person
within miles; and perhaps the cannibals of the interior
will come and carry me off, for as^ close as thirty miles
inland in some places there are still cannibals.

Mr. Close interrupted, and said that he and Billy
would take turns to play sentry outside my door, and
Mr. Fraser retorted that the mine wouldn't pay them for
that, and we talked more and more nonsense. He and Mr.
Burroughs sit opposite me now; Bee and Adelaide did

24

The Coconut Planter 25

at first, but since we left Brisbane they have not ventured
downstairs for a meal, so Mr. Close bribed the steward
to give him their places.

It's rather nice having them there ; it makes our end
very lively, and other people look enviously across at
times. I don't dislike Mr. Close nearly as much as I
did. In fact, he can be rather nice when he likes,
and he seems to be beginning to like. He comes
and sits beside me very often now and talks and
lends me books — not that I get much chance to read ; if
someone isn't talking to me, I'm being asked to play
some game or other. I'm quite the rage — really, and
you don't know how scrummy it is, after being nobody
particular all your life, to find you can be fascinating.

Doesn't that sound conceited? But truly that's
what I'm beginning to think I am — fascinating, I mean ;
not conceited. Mr. Close said so yesterday; he was
sitting on my pet particular place on the hatch when I
came up from lunch, and as my rug was there I natur-
ally sat down on it. He opened one eye and blinked at
me lazily.

"Go away," he said.

"I shan't," I retorted. "This is my reserved seat.
What do you want me to go away for ? "

He squinted at me without answering. "How do
you get that lovely blue shade in your hair ? " he de-
manded. "I believe you dye it. Little girls shouldn't
be allowed to have blue hair."

"Why?" I laughed.

"It makes little boys want to pull it down and play
with it," he replied in his abrupt, almost rude way that
isn't rude at all when you get to understand him. Then
he added: "Will you promise not to make love to me
if I let you stop ? "

"Indeed I will," I replied, laughing outright, "if
you give a similar promise."

26 The Coconut Planter

"Can't," he answered, "not unless you make your
hair stay a respectable Black instead of letting it match
your eyes. I wonder any girl has the impertinence to
go out with blue hair and blue eyes. Just imagine what
anyone would think if I described it ! They'd think
you were an early woad-stained Briton, wouldn't they?
It sounds disgusting."

"But it doesn't look it, does it?" I asked mis-
chievously, and at that he opened his eyes a little wider
and looked at me for a minute. It was one of those kind
of looks that say a lot. Terry used to do that, but all
he actually said, and quite brusquely too, was :

"I guess you know what it looks like all right."

I wonder if you can understand what he is like at
all from that. He's hard to describe. He isn't nice
at first, but I should think the better you knew him
the more you'd like him, and I don't think now he's
conceited, as I did at first — not very; it's just his
manner. He has the queerest manner I ever met, and
he never says anything really nice; even when he does
pay you a compliment he always qualifies it, as when
yesterday he was telling me I was pretty he added,
"All except your chin."

"What's wrong with my chin?" I asked amusedly
— his rudeness is always amusing, just as some men,
when they try to be amusing, only manage to be rude.

"It's too square," he said, "for a girl. I expect
you're very pig-headed, very intellectual, or very
good."

"Well, don't you like girls good?" I asked.

He shook his head decidedly. "The odour of
sanctity is like all other strong scents, a little of it goes
a long way. I like a girl who knows her way in out
of the rain."

"Whatever do you mean by that ? " I said, though I
could guess.

The Coconut Planter 27

" Humph ! " he said — that was all ; but I had to laugh
suddenly, he looked so droll.

"I see," I said; "it relieves you of a feeling of
responsibility."

He looked at me for a minute or two without answer-
ing, and then all he said was :

"I told you your chin was too square."

It's rather fun talking to him, you see; it's some-
thing like playing with a cracker; you are never quite
sure when it may go off or startle you in some way.

Aren't different kinds of people interesting? I love
watching them on board and seeing how like every-
body is, and yet how unalike, too. There's a Sydney
girl on board. Her name is Nancy Drew, but I've nick-
named her Diana — she is so haughty-looking and re-
served. But she talks to me a little; she told me she
only came out this year, and has been going the pace
so hard that they sent her this trip for a rest. Fancy
having to take a dose of fun to counteract the effect
of other fun. I wouldn't mind a complaint like that,
or the treatment either. Heigho ! all the coming out
I ever did was measles or a rash, but, of course, I didn't
tell Diana that. I let her think I'm a bloated plutocrat
like herself — why shouldn't I ? I don't pretend any-
thing. I only hold my tongue, for, even if poverty
isn't a disease, it doesn't make people rush your society,
and, anyway, I don't see whose business it is but mine.
Besides, I'm not poor any longer. I'm a beastly
capitalist. I've got a thousand pounds — you forget
that.

Talking of snobbishness, though, I heard the love-
liest thing to-day. We carry two small launch boys of
thirteen or so ; they are very much alike, a mixture of
twinkle and machine oil, and as for names. I never
heard either addressed as anything but "launchey."

This afternoon I was leaning over the rail looking

28 The Coconut Planter

down into the waist of the ship, and these two young-
sters were sitting on the hatch below having an argu-
ment. I couldn't catch all of it, but in one place
launchey number one raised his voice scornfully.

"Pooh, who cares what you think? Your father's
only a common old sailor; my uncle was a squatter."

"Pooh!" says launchey number two, even more
scornfully, "that's nothin'; mine was murdered."

I fled hastily or my laughter might have made them
look up. Oh, you can have lots of fun on a small
boat out of the people ; and we gossip so much about
each other. We only carry about forty passengers, so
you've simply got to know everybody. Even Diana
has to— to her disgust. They got at her first of all. I
suppose because she seemed so exclusive. She is
travelling with her brother, whose name is Gordon. We
call him "Gordon dear" behind his back, because she
mostly adds the affection. He is most nice to her and
looks after her beautifully. He makes me want to have
a brother, too.

It's a dear, quaint, beautiful little world we are
living in, composed of fifty odd people and the round
ocean and the blue sky and the living air. . . Gracious,
when I start quoting Wordsworth so soon after break-
fast, it's time I did something, isn't it? I'll go and
play deck billiards with Billy. He and I are having a
Titanic match; we are playing three rubbers. First we
started to play the best two out of three games, but I
just won, so he suggested making it the best out of
three rubbers. Now we play about a game a day, and
it's most exciting. The men are betting on the result.

Oh, bother, here comes Mr. Close, so I expect he's
going to plague me. Imagine what we did this morn-
ing ! We played knifey, or whatever you call it. Yo*
toss a penknife with its blades half out up in the a*
and take so many points for the way it sticks in t

The Coconut Planter 29

deck. It was lucky Mr. Fraser didn't catch us at it,
wasn't it? He wouldn't have been pleased at the way
we were making holes in his precious deck. He gets
awfully agitated if he finds people ill-treating it, or his
paintwork ; we tell him he must dream of paint at
nights. He's always wandering round with a pot in
one hand and a brush in the other and cursing when
a shower of rain comes to mark the lifeboats.

Well, if Nevil isn't a cat. He's walked straight past
with just a nod and curled himself up with a book near
Diana. He isn't talking to her, but still, if he wanted
to read, why couldn't he have sat near me? He talked
to me all last night and this morning again. And now
he ignores me — not that I care what he does, but it
seems so funny ; he's always like this — one minute it
seems as if he can't get enough of me and the next I
don't seem to exist for him.

Why, yesterday afternoon he would insist on hold-
ing my hand. We were sitting up on the front under
the bridge on a rug, and I simply couldn't stop him
playing with it. He is so persistent he wears down
your defences through sheer weariness. But even then
he wasn't polite about it. He told me my hands weren't
a bad shape, but that I didn't take enough care of them.
He said I ought to wear glycerine gloves every night.

I have lost interest in my appearance lately a little.
I've been so unhappy. But it's rather jolting, all the
same, to have a man find fault with you like that.

"Well, if you don't like them," I said, snatching
it away, "leave them alone."

"I didn't say I didn't like them," he rephed calmly,
recapturing it. "Little girls shouldn't fly into tempers."

"I'm not in a temper," I snapped.
a "Yes, you are," he said unruffled, and he held my
liiand up and looked contemplatively at it. "Horrid
(ittle thing," he said and suddenly kissed it.
c

30 The Coconut Planter

I was so taken by surprise I couldn't say a word.
And perhaps it's rather dreadful to confess, but I liked
it. You see, it's so long since anyone made love to me,
and I suppose every woman wants it somehow, but I
never let anyone save Terry, and that was so short, and
I'm twenty-three years old, and I can't go through all
my life with only the memory of three months' love to
keep me going, can I ?

But I should think Nev Close was rather cruel. He
squeezed my fingers so hard several times that I nearlv
cried out with the pain, and he wouldn't stop when I
told him he hurt ; he only laughed at me. I suppose
he didn't think I meant it. But he really did hurt.
Terry used almost to frighten me at first when he got
excited, but he never hurt me, and Nev wasn't excited
at all, or didn't seem so. I think he would rather enjoy
hurting things.

CHAPTER VI

I've been skipping.

I suppose we were mad, but you must do something
on a boat, and one thing is as good as another when
you think it over. We took it in turns to play foHbw-
my-leader through the rope, skipping first one, then
two, then three, and so on — just as we used to do at
school. It was fun, and it shook our hair down and
our livers up, and so, I suppose, benefited us all round.

Everybody joined in but Diana. She wouldn't. I
guess a hair might have got loose from her perfect
parting, or maybe the colour on her lips would run with
exertion. Don't I sound mean? But she does redden
her lips. It's patent to anyone, and it's so silly in a
young girl, for she is naturally pretty.

Billy simply hates that about her. He doesn't think
her pretty at all. He says she shows in her face how
much she thinks of Nancy Drew, and that spoils her,
and he hates staring red lips anyway. He objected to
her use of powder, too, and when honesty compelled me
to interrupt and confess my own face wasn't un-
acquainted with it, he was staggered for the moment.
But he recovered, and he said you'd never guess it ; it
couldn't be seen, anyway, and it was the look he minded,
not the principle. Diana wore hers like a plaster.

He is so quaint ; he is very decided in his likes and
dislikes. Most boys are ; Terry w-as just the same, and
he wasn't much older than Billy when we were married.
I don't think I realised, till I thought of it that way,
what children we really were. Why, the idea of little

31

32 The Coconut Planter

Billy marrying seems downright ridiculous. Perhaps
it's because he's so short. Terry was such a big, hand-
some giant, he seemed older. Appearances count a
frightful lot in life, don't they?

The other person who wouldn't skip was Nev, but
he had a good excuse. He'd twisted his ankle not so
very long ago, and he was afraid, if he landed on it
suddenly, he might put it out again, so he sat on the
hatch and watched us. He told me after he was like
Mary, he had the better part. He saw such a fine dis-
play of ankles.

"I do like nice ankles," he went on with his quaint
frankness; "I'm sure I could never love a girl with
thick ones. Yours are pretty."

"Mr. Close," I expostulated, trying to be decorously
shocked.

"Oh, come now," he protested, "in these days of
skirts nine inches off the ground, you can't expect me
to believe ankles are a subject tabooed — especially with
you."

"Why especially me? " I inquired a trifle haughtily.

"Well," he said, "don't you know you're a little
fast? At least, I've been told so."

"By whom?" I demanded. "A man?"

"Now, is it likely?" he laughed.

"No, but I wanted to be sure. Which of the girls
was it ? "

"Oh, come," he said again, "you can't expect me to
tell you that. Don't you think it was kind of her to
warn me ? "

"No, I don't," I said, "I think it was rank im-
pertinence."

"Oh, lie," he said, "what a little temper she has.
Don't take it so seriously or I shall wish I hadn't told
you. I thought you'd be amused. You've evidently
been treading on someone's small toe."

The Coconut Planter 33

"Was it Miss Brough?" I said, smitten with a
sudden inspiration; "I do believe it was. I'm sure she
hasn't forgiven me for beating her in the golf tourna-
ment; she has scarcely spoken to me since. It was she,
wasn't it ? "

"When I was a little boy at school," Mr. Close told
me, "we used to reply to remarks of that sort : * Ask no
questions and you'll be told no ' "

"I consider you very rude," I said coldly.

"So do lots of other people," he said, with laughter
in his eyes. "My upbringing has evidently left much
to be desired. I've suspected it for a long time. Oh,
we're passing a steamer. Cargo boat from the cut of
her. Would you care to have a look at her through
my glasses ? "

Thus did he draw a herring over the trail of Miss
Brough, and I was too polite to question him further.
Men don't think it fair to tell one girl about another,
do they ? They are different from us.

I think I'll have to retreat to my cabin; it's the only
place to be quiet in, and I want to study up my book
on coconut planting again. Nev has offered, when we
get to Samarai, to introduce me to a Mr. Carrier, who,
he says, is one of the biggest planters in New Guinea
and can give me lots of tips. Isn't it nice of Nev?
He knows him well. I think it is so kind of him to
think of it; most people are kind, but so many don't
think of being so at the right minute, which makes you
appreciate those who do.

I wonder if I'll be able to manage it all right. vStill,
I've just got to succeed. I'm sinking my whole re-
sources and I daren't fail. Let's study my chart again.
I have the most perfectly wonderful book — I got it from
the Department of External Affairs — which tells vou
about everything you want to know— at least it seems
to — and it has a huge map. Papua looks such a small

34 The Coconut Planter

affair in a map of the world, hut when you get it by
itself the hundreds of islands round it, let alone the size
of the mainland, is simply paralysing. And to think
Woodlark Island, of which I own just a speck of a
hundred acres, is just a speck among them. What an
infinitesimal, no-account creature Sunny Shale must
be in the scheme of things.

When I say "own," of course I don't own my land.
The Government won't sell any land outright; they'll
only lease it, though the rent is so small they almost
give it to you. My lease is for ninety-nine years, and
for the first ten years I have no rent at all, and after
that it's only threepence an acre, and goes up about a
penny every ten years : the book says it never rises
above tenpence.

You see, the Government want to encourage settle-
ment there, for they say it's a wonderfully fertile
country. It is outside the hurricane belt, and not a
single industry that has been properly established there
has so far failed. I've discovered that they have all
kinds of industries besides growing coconuts; they grow
rubber and hemp, and they export pearls and tortoise-
shell and sandalwood and all kinds of other things —
not to mention gold and copper.

They say we have really no idea how rich it would
be if it were properly cultivated, for there is lots of land
suited for growing sugarcane. It would grow even
better there than in Queensland, for it and sago and
tobacco are found wild, though no one has started culti-
vating them yet in large quantities. Coconuts are still
ihe main industry. There are more than twenty thou-
sand acres of coconuts under cultivation now— I think
the book said — to about six thousand rubber, which
ranks next. Of course, those don't sound huge figures
to people used to plantations, but Papua is still in its
infancy. The Government is holding three hundred

The Coconut Planter 35

thousand acres still for agricultural purposes, and they
hope to have it all taken up one day. You see, there
is always a market for copra ; coconut oil is always in
demand, and they manufacture soap from it too and
margarine, so that the price fluctuates very little.

I don't know where I'm going to get my material
or my labourers yet, but they tell me I can buy my
seed coconuts up there, and I'll be able to get the
natives all right. If I want to know anything to apply
to the nearest magistrate. It seems the catchword in
Papua is if you want to know the time or anything
else ask an R.M.

Anyway, I've shut my eyes and taken the plunge.
There's no drawing back now. And that's why I feel
D rakish.

CHAPTER VII

Well, here we are in Cairns. We arrived soon after
lunch, about two, I think, and some of us were so
anxious to see the much-talked-of town that we went
up immediately we were tied alongside to see what w-e
could see.

It didn't take long, for it's not big. It's like most
up-country towns. The chief buildings are, in order
of nomination, hotels, post and telegraph office, steam-
ship agencies and banks about level. But there are one
or two rather attractive sweetshops and one drapery
emporium that is quite astonishingly big and up-to-
date.

We went into it because Bee wanted a Panama,
having lost hers overboard yesterday, and what we
instantly desired to know was who on earth would buy
such smart headgear as we saw in the cases — really
smart some of them were; I don't mean merely ornate.
Most of our sex we'd seen in the streets didn't look up
to more than four and elevenpenny's sale price ; but the
shopgirl explained their steady customers are the rich
plantation people, who live out from Cairns. The
banana and sugar plantations are what make the rich-
ness of the district. Cairns itself is merely their port
and the headquarters for tourists.

Just as we were leaving the shop a glorious motor
went by with some girls in it. We looked at them and
understood why the shop kept hats like that. It was
some motor.

I think I'm a wee bit disappointed with the town

36

The Coconut Planter 37

though. From the wharf the impression it gives you
is mostly mud and flatness. Still, it's hardly fair to
expect ports to be beautiful, is it? Even the shipping
side of the Harbour can hardly be admired truthfully;
by Harbour, of course, I mean Sydney Harbour, a
Sydney person always does. Nev laughed at me for
forgetting to mention which one I meant; he said all
Sydney folk think they've got the only one God
made.

He and I had tea together in a very decent little
caf6 there, and after I bought myself a pair of white
sandshoes, which, they tell me, are the most comfort-
able things to wear about the house in New Guinea;
lots of people wear them even in the streets. I saw Mr.
Henderson in the shop buying a pair too. He and the
other officers wear them about all day now the hot
weather has started, and they have gone into white suits.
They started yesterday, stewards and all ; it was a
regular transformation scene when we woke up to find
all the dark blue disappeared.

He made us laugh a little later; we met him again
just as we were going into the tea shop, and made him
come with us. I had started out with the Warrens (I've
discovered their surname now) to see the town, when
Nev met us and asked us all to tea. They w^ouldn't
come, for Adelaide had developed a headache and
wanted to go straight back to the boat. While we were
at tea Mr. Henderson said he was afraid the captain
would be stopping them wearing sandshoes if they were
not careful, for yesterday the second dived down off the
bridge into the chart-room to look at a map and, shoot-
ing silently in on his rubbers, came upon the captain
with his arm round a fair lady. He retreated precipi-
tately, but — sandshoes must be a trial to a captain as
fond of the ladies as this one is.

They're waiting to hear if they'll get any orders on

38 The Coconut Planter

the subject, but so far the captain seems to be lying low.
Of course, they really oughtn't to wear sandshoes on
duty, as he cheerfully admitted, but as he also said,
why try to dress P. and O. style on such a small boat
and on such an informal kind of trip ? You might as
well be comfortable. I suppose they might, but they
certainly are go-as-you-please; it's nothing uncommon
to see Mr. Henderson saunter down from his room in
his shirt-sleeves to put his old cockatoo on the hatch.
I'll admit he doesn't do it very often; still, he does do
it. But he looked so very nice to-day in his white suit
that I forgave him. Although, as I told him, he'd
look nicer if his buttons were cleaner. I offered to shine
them up for him with brilliantshine.

"Gracious," Nev interrupted, "a lot you know
about it; that's stuff you put on your hair, silly."

"Silly yourself," I retorted, "that's brilliantine.
But I do wish you'd clean those buttons all the same,
Mr. Henderson."

"You can't," he said, squinting critically down at
them, "it takes all the gilt oft' them. I've tried. Besides,
they're not worth it; I can get new ones for twopence a
dozen, and I'll procure a new batch the minute I get
back to Sydney, just to please you."

"Good," I said; "then you'll be a perfect blaze of
glory."

"Well, I never," said Nev teasingly. "If you're not
meek. If she accused me of being dirty, I'd tell her
she was, too."

"But you couldn't," I said with a giggle, "not if
you'd seen me this morning. Why, I scrubbed my
neck with Dutch cleanser."

" Wh— a— at ! " said both men.

"It hurt," I said, "and it does sound as if I wasn't
as fond of baths as I pretend, doesn't it? But the real
cause was I had a sore throat last night and I put a

The Coconut Planter 39

compress of a wet stocking round it, it's the quickest
cure, you know, but I thoughtlessly used a coloured
stocking, instead of a white one, as I am usually careful
to do, and the result was, when I took it off this morn-
ing, my neck was a beautiful emerald green. I couldn't
face you all at breakfast like that, and it wouldn't
come off with soap, so I decided to try the cook's
prescription."

"Then if they only knew," said Nev, "they might
add to the advertisement : ' Cleans porcelain, nickel
and humanity.' Dyed yourself green ! I wish I'd seen
you. If there's anything else you are likely to do in
that line, let me know."

I chuckle again : "You're too late. I did it yester-
day. I was in a hurry to get out to breakfast and my
face felt burnt, so I rubbed it with what I thought was
liquid face cream, but when I looked at the label I
found it was hair restorer. Anyway, don't say I didn't
give you fair warning."

"All I hope is," said Nev, "that you won't want to
borrow my razors."

"Well, you are selfish," said Mr. Henderson. "I've
got an old one you can have, Miss Shale. It's too blunt
for me — which explains my generosity."

Can't you get lots of fun out of nothings, when you
are on a holiday and in a holiday mood?

To-morrow we are all going up to the Barron Falls.
Nev says I am sure to love them ; they are very beauti-
ful. He has been twice before, so I didn't think he'd
want to come with us. I asked him if he wouldn't find
it dull going over the same route so soon again, but he
only laughed, and said it wouldn't do for him to give
Billy too free a field.

Besides, he said it is very beautiful going up in the
train, and it interests him, too, as a bit of engineering.
It's supposed to be rather wonderful; you go through

40 The Coconut Planter

thirteen tunnels or more in quite a tiny journey. The
man that built it was some engineer; there's a huge
stone towering up by the side of the line near the
falls — they call his monument. His name was
Robb.

Nev says he wishes he could get on to an interesting
job like that.

CHAPTER VIII

Things are moving. First, I've made some jolly friends
and now I've acquired an enemy. It's most exciting,
and I don't in the least know how I made her either.
I don't think the girls on board like me very much.
You see, I've learnt to be a little defiant of girls, and
it isn't easy to unlearn the habit of years in a minute.
I don't mean to be stiff with them, but I'm afraid I
am a little, and then again— though it sounds a con-
ceited thing to say about oneself — I think they are a
wee bit jealous of me.

You see, I am quite a succes fou on this trip, and,
though the nicer ones have made friends with some
particular man, as always happens, none of them have
quite such a crowd round as I often have. There are
nearly always two or three ready to talk to me, and they
are always asking me to make a fourth at deck billiards
with them. I suppose it is because I am rather good
at these games — quite as good as some of the men,
though I say it myself — and to bring in another girl,
who would be a poor player, would spoil the game.
Still, I suppose it does look a bit pointed when I am
the only girl among the men such a lot, and it's only
natural if they should talk about me. I daresay I would
myself in their place. I don't blame them a bit.

But it's rather funny the way Miss Brough has got
me set. I didn't take much notice of what she said to
Nev, but she really does seem to detest me. I wonder
if she is jealous because Nev likes to talk to me when
he's supposed to be looking after her. She oughtn't to

42

The Coconut Planter

mind; she's engaged to be married, but there's no
accounting for girls, is there ? Perhaps that's what it is,
for to-day when he was passing a group of them he
said: "Does anyone know where Miss Shale is? I've
got a book of hers." Miss Brough looked up from the
midst of them and took on herself to reply acidly :
"Oh, look where the men are, Mr. Close; you're sure
to find her there."

Bee told me about it. That was one for Sunny
Shale all right, wasn't it?

I don't know what first put her against me, as I
have said, but I've put her back up now for good and
all. Just like me, I always speak before I think. There
were half a dozen of us lounging around after lunch
yesterday, telling stories. Then someone suggested we
should make up limericks on each other. You know
what verses are made up that way, generally rocky in
the metre and the rhyme worse than awful.

Still, we all had a try. There was Nev there and
Billy and Diana and her brother and me and another
girl and the third officer, not to mention his cockatoo,
and we were all feeling very sleepy and frivolous
together, if you can understand the combination. I
expect it was due to the glorious breeze and a bonza
lunch.

They made up the loveliest one on me, at least Mr.
Henderson and " Gordon dear " did between them, with
suggestions from the rest. It went :

YoiCve all heard of Cynthia Shale.
Where'er she goes all the men trail.

But if tales don't deceive us.

She'' s going to leave us
hi Woodlarkj and then wonH Ti'e wail !

We had scarcely finished laughing over this when
they said it was my turn, and, while I was protesting

The Coconut Planter 43

I couldn't think of a thing, I suddenly got the giggles.
You know how a mad idea flits through your mind at
times. I'd seen Miss Brough coming up the com-
panion-way, and a limerick on her seemed to spring up
all neatly gummed together in my head in half a minute.
I wouldn't tell them at first when they plagued, but in
the end I had to.

There once was a lady named Brough
Whose ambition in life was to stuff.
At breakfast and lunch
She would crunch and would crunch;
Even then she could ne'er get enough.

I didn't mean to be horrid really, but Miss Brough
is a good sailor, and is always down to meals; and it
just broke up the company ; I thought they'd never stop
laughing. But the terrible part is the other girl went
and repeated it to Miss Brough. It was pretty mean of
her, but it can't be helped now. I shouldn't have said
it, but she'll have her knife into me now worse than
ever, won't she?

My trubs ! as Terry used to say. Perhaps it's a
wise motto ; certainly nothing ever did seem to trouble
Terry — not even a superfluous wife. Cynthia Shale,
you ought to be ashamed of yourself when everyone is
so good to you. Still, I can't help feeling a cat.

I believe it's because Mr. Close reminds me of him,
Terry I mean. He isn't like him a bit to look at,
except perhaps his eyes a little, but they are grey,
not blue, like Terry's. It's his ways, I think; perhaps
that's why I like him. I always suspected you were a
fool. Sunny, but in a minute it will be patent to
anybody.

But I hate him having tricks that bring Terry back
to me. It makes me feel I'm flirting with a corpse.
For I am flirting with him. I am. I don't care if it is

44 The Coconut Planter

shocking. I'm going on doing it, too. Can't you
understand? I'm only twenty-three and I haven't been
kissed for three years. And sometimes I've wanted it
so dreadfully. Maybe, I wouldn't have if I'd never
been kissed, but Terry taught me to want kisses. Most
girls have to be taught to like them. I hated them at
first, even from Terry; but once you've got to like it
you want it always.

But I wish Nev didn't kiss like Terry. I wish some-
times he disliked me or that I could offend him so he'd
never speak to me again. I'd sooner flirt with anyone
else on board, only I don't think there's anyone but
him I could bear to touch me, except perhaps Billy —
and I like Billy too much to flirt with him. He's only
a kid, and it wouldn't be fair. There I go. I said I
wasn't going to care who I hurt, and there, right at the
start, I'm considering someone's feelings, but little Bill
is such a dear.

I see quite a lot of him nowadays, for, being such a
pal of Nev's, he comes and talks to us when we are
together, and when Nev is in one of his tantrums, or
away playing quoits, or talking to the other girls, Billy
and I have long talks on our own. We talk quite
sensibly all the time, and he is most disconcertingly
wise for his years. I don't mean you to understand he
is an infant in arms, but he is a couple of years younger
than I, and that makes me feel motherly about him.
Two years in your twenties make a big difference,
although, when I once explained to Billy how patriarchal
— no, that's wrong, I'm sure; can one say matriarchal?
— he made me feel, he said :

"Goodness, why it's you make me feel old. I don't
believe you're twenty-three; you look like a kid of
eighteen, only you can talk and they can't."

I had to laugh; his opinion of flappers and young
girls is so very boyish and superior. That's the delight-

The Coconut Planter 45

ful part about Billy — he is just a real boy, and doesn't
pretend to be grown-up a bit, although, mind you, Nev
says he is awfully clever. Nev thinks a heap of him.
In fact, he warned me off the grass in that direction,
and I liked him for it; I didn't think he would have
cared enough about anyone to bother. I forget quite
how it started; we were speaking about engineering, I
think, when he said suddenly :

"Look here. Sunny, you're to leave Billy alone."
" Nev ! " I protested, a little amazed at the
unexpectedness of the attack, " whatever do you
mean ? "

"You know well enough what I mean," he replied.
"It isn't fair to make a man want you when you don't
mean to let him have you."

"Idiot! " I said. "Besides, Billy isn't a man; he's
a boy."

Nev sniffed, "He's man enough to get to want you
if you make him."

"Very flattering of you I'm sure," I said, "but you
seem to have a better opinion of my powers of fascina-
tion than I have. I was not aware I could make
anyone like me at will."

"Little liar!" said Nev, kissing my hair. "Still,
I'm old enough to look out for myself, and Billy isn't.
Leave him alone and practise your wiles on me."

"Beast ! " I said, pushing him away. And then my
curiosity got uppermost. I'd often wondered just how
much Nev liked me really. Of course he flirts with
me and plays my cavalier, but that only means he finds
me most attractive of the girls on board — he's the sort
must always be interested in some girl or another ; it
doesn't mean he likes me for myself. I looked at him
a while. "Do you like me, Nev, really?" I asked.

"Depends on what you mean by like," said Nev.
"I can't sleep at nights for thinking of you sometimes.

D

46 The Coconut Planter

It's a blessing I'm too poor to marry, isn't it?
Otherwise I might ask you,"

"Oh, silly," I said, "I didn't mean that at all. I
meant do you like me at all — apart from flirting, I
mean — as a friend ? You know, Nev, there are other
things to me besides my face and kissing. Don't you
like me a little bit — just for me?"

Nev turned and looked at me quizzically. "Um-m I "
he said, "you're not a bad little lass in streaks; I think
I do — a bit. But you leave Billy alone."

I mean to. I wouldn't admit it to Nev, but I know
I could make Billy like me if I wanted to. A woman
can always tell when a man is ready to fall in love with
her. It's all rot to say she can't help him doing it — at
least it is in nine cases out of ten. Well, I won't let
Billy, but I like Nev for thinking of it. It has pulled
me up, too, because I have been rather nice to him
lately without thinking, and now I shall be careful.

But, of course, I wouldn't admit that to Nev. We
sat silent a minute or two, and then he held out his
hand and jumped up. "Catch hold," he said, "and I'll
help you a bit." I don't believe I explained that we
were climbing down the steps to the bottom of the
Barron Falls when we sat down to argue this out.
Billy was on a little ahead. When we got down he
snapped us as we descended, looking perfectly awful,
as the steps are about two miles apart, or that's what it
feels like to the foot left behind when you put out the
other as a scout.

I just loved it down there. There were plenty more
from the ship ahead and behind us. It's certainly a
climb, and lots of the party wouldn't attempt it, but
they don't know what they missed. The green sides of
the hills are so high, so high, and the waterfall dashes
down with such a roar, and little sideslips of it skitter
about as if they were playing truant from the main fall

The Coconut Planter 47

and enjoying it awfully. You couldn't help laughing at
them — they looked so sly. And it's glorious in the
hollow with the spray lighting on you softly but
steadily like dew. It does so anywhere in the gully —
a continuous fine drizzle all the time, though we stood
ever so far away from the fall.

And it's quite cool standing down there in the
pleasant greenness, but, oh, that climb back ! I should
never have done it if it hadn't been for Nev and Billy;
they took it in turns to pull me up on the end of a
handkerchief, for it really is an awful climb, and hot.
Italics only hint at it; they can't explain. My face
positively ran with perspiration, and I felt so ashamed
of its shininess that I insisted on stopping half-way and
powdering it. The boys were frightfully amused.
They told me it wasn't a bit of use, for it would all
run off before I got to the top, and it did, too.

But it was a lovely day, and after that we went on
to Kuranda and saw the Butterfly Farm. It's the
most wonderful place ; for a shilling they show you
what I think must be the loveliest moths and butterflies
in the whole w^orld. I hate dead things as a rule, but I
could rave over these. We all sat round a table and
gasped, "Lovely, beautiful; oh, look at that," till we
couldn't say anything more, but could only gaze in
silence.

All we women started planning how exquisite some
of them would look as trimming on gowns. Nev said
that proved we were barbarians ; but oh ! if you could
only have seen two cases of the moths — one was in
fawns, shading off to almost tangerine, and the other
of pink moths, ranging from salmon to rose, and all
as big as my hand and bigger I They are indescrib-
ably lovely. They didn't look dead at all. And then
the man who owns the place showed us some moon
moths from India to compare with them; they are

48 The Coconut Planter

gorgeous, too, but not nearly as lovely as some of our
Australian born. (Can you say "born" for moths, or
would "grown " be better?)

One had come out of its chrysalis just a little before
we arrived, and was hanging in a languid way on the
portiere of the room waiting for the sun and air to
give it strength. The man let it rest in my palm. It
makes you wonder how God could think of anything so
beautiful.

I went out of the house feeling as if I'd been to a
sermon. I expect God must think a lot of the world
after all, since He can take the trouble to fill it with
such exquisite things for us. I expect it is our fault the
things are so badly divided up, and even when Nev
rallied me on my seriousness, and stole a big double
crimson hibiscus for me to wear, I couldn't rouse
myself. I was quiet all the way down, as we wound
through the marvellous tunnels and down the steep
sides of the gorges and along the banana plantations,
and when we got back to the boat I went straight to
bed. I wouldn't go to the pictures with Nev as I had
promised to do. I said I had a headache.

I hadn't, but I had a heartache, which was worse.
I was hating myself. Do you ever get like that, I
wonder? I was wishing I was beautiful like the butter-
fly and as good as I was beautiful, like princesses in
fairy tales, and that I had never flirted with Nev or
married Terry, and didn't want to be kissed or made a
fuss of.

I stood on the settee for a long time and gazed at
the stars out in the dark, and thought about God and
me and the world. I wonder if God ever despises us
as we get to despise ourselves. I don't believe He
could, because I believe He can understand and, if you
understand anything completely, you can't condemn,
for real understanding means sympathy. I guess that's

The Coconut Planter 49

why we can always find excuses for ourselves; we know
all the ins and outs of us, and no one else can, except,
perhaps, God, and I believe He must make excuses for
us too. It helps a lot to think He does anyway. You
don't feel so terribly alone.

How dark it is; there's a little low wind breathing
round my hair, and the stars are very quiet. It sounds
as if the sea were kissing the sky good-night. Poor,
tired sea ! And I'm tired too, but we'll wake up
better in the morning. I guess — if we could only see
it — it's morning always with God.

CHAPTER IX

I WISH Nev didn't talk to Miss Brough so much. I
don't think it's quite nice of him when she so publicly
doesn't like me. It makes me look rather absurd to
have him go from my side to hers, but of course I
can't explain that to Nev; I have no real claim on him,
and it would be absurd to make one. But if he had
very much nice feeling he would see that it makes
people smile a bit, and me very uncomfortable.

vStill, I daresay he wouldn't mind if I were uncom-
fortable. I don't think he cares particularly about me;
he isn't the sort of man really to worry much about
women, though he can twist them round his fingers. I
expect that's the reason why he can.

Of course, he has to be a little nice to her. I don't
think it's all inclination. She is going to marry his
boss, so it pays him to be civil to her. But I don't see
that fact alone need make him as civil as he is. She
is very sweet to him, and encourages him to talk to her
to spite me. Oh, she does really; I'm not imagining
things. Even Bee and Adelaide put that construction
on it.

Miss Brough lies back in her deck chair and lets him
sit beside her looking down into her eyes in a way
that, in my opinion, is downright scandalous in a girl
as good as married. I don't care really who he talks to,
but I think my annoyance is that, by sharing him with
her, I'm classing myself with her, and I wouldn't do
that for something. Really, I think I dislike her. She's
not bad-looking, you know — one of those skinny, dark,

50

The Coconut Planter 51

almost Jewish-looking girls with big black eyes and a
smart way of dressing — but I don't admire her myself a
bit, and I shouldn't have thought Nev would. But
she's dainty in a way, being small, and Nev admires
daintiness above all things.

She makes no secret of her dislike of me to Nev
either, but he thinks it a joke, or pretends he does, and,
of course, I pretend I do, too. In a way it isn't pre-
tence; it is comic, but it does sting when she smiles
insolently at me if I happen to come across them
together. He certainly spends more time with me than
with her, but, you see, I don't like him spending any
with her.

She gave me the loveliest snub yesterday, or tried
to. Really, I wonder where people get the nerve to be
publicly rude. I can't. I think we hurt enough people
without meaning to without doing it on purpose. But
she seems to enjoy doing it deliberately.

1 was sitting on the hatch, my favourite spot, with
Billy and Nev, one on each side. Billy was reading a
story to us, and Nev was lying down with his head on
his arms and his hat tilted over his eyes, half-asleep.
Miss Brough sauntered by with another man and
called to Nev as she went by, in a lazy, superior,
married kind of way ; she adopts that tone with
him in front of others: "With the girls as usual,
Mr. Close."

"Sure," Nev replied sleepily. "I'm always with a
nice girl when I get the chance."

"Hm — m — m ! " said Miss Brough slowly, and with
meaning. She half turned and surveyed us through
narrowed lids. "I haven't noticed," she said sweetly,
"that they're always nice girls," and trailed on.

She left a blank silence with us. For a minute I
couldn't believe my ears, and glanced questioningly at
the boys. Billy's face was a study.

52 The Coconut Planter

"If she were a man " he began indignantly, but

by this time I'd got back my presence of mind.

"Oh, shoo," I said. "What does it matter? Her
opinion won't keep me awake at nights. Go on with
the story, Billy." And suddenly the humour of it
struck me and I began to laugh. Both the boys joined
in, and we felt better. Nev hasn't said anything further
about it, but I believe it has disgusted him with her a
little. He is nice to her still, but I haven't noticed him
with her as much. But I don't like to see him speak-
ing to her at all ; I think if he were a real friend of
mine he'd ignore her completely after an insult like that.
But I suppose he doesn't think enough of me to do
that.

Billy does though. He is perfectly furious with her,
and won't take the slightest notice of her when she goes
past — not that he ever did much. However, he used to
be polite; but this morning, before breakfast, when
she came up to him on the deck for some reason or
another and said, "Good morning," he replied
in the coldest tone, "Good morning," and walked
deliberately away.

I scolded him about it ; it's not a bit wise of him
to take up my quarrel like that, for Mr. Carlyle is his
boss too, and, if she's got any influence over him, it
may be very unpleasant for Billy. It may even earn
him the sack. But when I pointed all this out to him
he only shook his head stubbornly.

"I'll not speak to a woman who insults you," he
said. "Why, what do you take me for? Do you think
I think as little of you as all that."

"Billy, you dear," I said impulsively, "you dear,
sweet kid."

"Here," said Billy grufifly, "not so much of the kid.
Two years' difference isn't a lifetime — if it is two years,
which I don't believe sometimes; when you talk as you

The Coconut Planter 53

did just now you're only about three. Speak to the
woman, indeed, will I ! "

He positively radiated wrath, and I felt immensely
cheered and uplifted by it, even if it was un-Christian-
like; but I do wish it hadn't happened, for she's a good
hater, and she's got Billy on her list now too, for he has
publicly humiliated her. There were quite a crowd on
the deck when Billy turned his back on her, and
naturally they wondered. I saw her eye him just now,
and it isn't any joy surprises she is planning for him.

But his championship is warming, especially as Nev
hasn't alluded to it. Billy is really much more worth
liking than he. I think another reason he and I get on
is we have a bond of sympathy — we've both had a hard
innings. Billy is the eldest of a large family, and when
it's poor you know what that means. He's been
practically keeping himself ever since he was fourteen.
He made up his mind then what he wanted to be, left
school and went into a foundry, and had a mighty hard
row to hoe. But he's come through now, and his feet
are on the first rung of the ladder.

Not that he talks about himself a lot — you mustn't
think that ; but a woman can make a man talk without
his knowing it, and I've learnt a good deal about Billy.
I guess the life he's led and mixing up with older men
and having to rely on himself have made a man of him
younger than most, for, in his ways and modes of think-
ing, he is almost older than Nev; it's only about women
he is so delightfully young.

He thinks such a heap of them, you know, it makes
me almost uncomfortable. In a way, seeing the life he's
led and the kind of men he's mixed up with, it's a
wonder he's so fresh, but lewdness — I can't think of any
other word than the old Bible one — doesn't appeal to
Billy at all; he's a staunch little Puritan,

"Of course," he told me one time, "a fellow can't

54 The Coconut Planter

help hearing other fellows talk; down in the foundry, in
the room I was working in, sometimes they used to
make me fairly sick. Once I got so mad with them
that I put down my tools and went outside. I told
them I wanted some air to blow away their talk; when
they'd finished they could let me know and I'd come
back. They shut up then, for they didn't want the
foreman around asking questions, and after that one of
them was a bit decenter and stopped the others." His
face expressed ruminative disgust. "It was low down,
wasn't it? I was only sixteen then. It didn't matter
for me so much. I know what I'm after, and I didn't
care what they said, but lots of kids can't bear being
laughed at. The chap that took my place has gone to
pieces, and he could have been such a decent sort. I
suppose they don't understand what they're doing to
us."

Somehow it made me realise that Nev was right and
that Billy is a man.

But I like him best when he's a boy and tells me
about his home and his people. I'd like to meet them.
I wonder, though, would they like to meet me ? Per-
haps his mother would hate me and think I am doing
him harm, but I'm not really; I'm truly not.

We'll be in Port Moresby to-morrow — three days'
going from Cairns. I wonder if it will be very pretty.
We have passed the cutest bits of scenery to-day ; it's
the green greenness of everything that is so wonderful,
and the thickness of the growth and the sudden sur-
prising little corners of marbly beach, with coquettish
black stones on them to show up their whiteness. How
dirty and untidy the few native huts we see here and
there, perched on perfectly ridiculous angles and spurs,
do look !

Billy and I have been sitting up in the bows, watch-
ing. The bows is the nicest place to view scenery from,

The Coconut Planter 55

even if you do have to be accompanied by flannel shirts
and other half-dried washing hung on the guys.

A shoal of flying fish came with us some way, too.
Aren't they beautiful and startling — like silver thoughts
that flash across your mind and are gone before you can
rouse yourself to grasp them ? One came on board; he
was quite twelve or thirteen inches long, with the
wonderfullest wings, like transparent mother-of-pearl.
Mr. Henderson caught it and said he was going to have
it for his breakfast. It seemed a shame to eat such a
fair thing, but he wouldn't put it back as I asked him;
he said they were jolly good eating.

Some whales, too, came blowing away to port.
Doesn't that sound beautifully nautical? Mr. Hender-
son has taught me such a lot about ships. I can tell
the time by the bells almost without stopping to count,
and I know how you tell, by Marine Board rules, which
is the overtaking vessel- — only I forget just how for the
minute; and I know what the standard compass is, and
how many lights a ship must carry, and that for regula-
tion uniform your boots oughtn't to have toecaps, and,
if a steamer's port light is on your starboard, you are
responsible for a collision, whilst, if her green light is
on your port it's up to her. ... I hope I haven't got
them the wrong way round. . . . Anyway, it's all
fascinating. Sailors' knowledge always seems so wonder-
ful to me. I suppose because it's so utterly different
from the kind most of us have.

It's ordinary enough to them, but to me it's kind of
fairy-taleish, and even looking through a sextant strikes
me as a mystery ; I feel as people must have in the
Middle Ages, when astrologers did tricks with horo-
scopes or astrolabes, or whatever it was. Perhaps it's
just the sailor blood in my veins; my father's people
came of the sea, and I love it; how I love it — in any old
mood, even when it's heaving and tossing and shaking

56 The Coconut Planter

itself impatiently, trying to get the irritating insect we
are off its tickling broad back.

Its back seems to tickle a lot between here and
Cairns. It's a sideways run we make, like a crab, and
we have the current the whole time on our beam — Mr.
Henderson again — while the wind often drives from
quite another quarter. You can guess that makes some
of a sea, and a lot of the people are very sick. My
poor Warrens head the procession. I never knew any-
one could be as sick as Adelaide. Bee is not quite so
bad, but she won't go up without her cousin, and
nobly stays down with her in the cabin to keep her
cheerful.

I go down every now and again to assist in the
cheering. They seem to have taken rather a fancy to
me. Bee says it is because I am so very young. Did
you ever hear such a reason ? And I feel so old. At
least, that's not quite truthful ; I ought to say felt, for,
somehow, these last few days I've lost years and years;
I believe the spray and wind have swept them off. I
can remember, when I was quite small, and we lived in
islands like these, tumbling about in the surf many a
time with father and a nigger crew. I just remember it
faintly, but I suppose I got it into my system young,
and that's why I'm not sick now. At least, I was one
day, but not very badly.

I'll run down now and bathe Adelaide's head with
eau-de-Cologne; that seems to do her a lot of good. I
can't imagine how she keeps so sweet-tempered when
she feels so ill. The day I was bad I wanted to throw
my slippers at anyone who spoke to me. It's a wonder
she doesn't hate me when she sees me eating chocolates
and she can't even keep soup down. But she is sweet
and interested and cheerful, and always wants to know
what is Miss Brough's latest.

"Don't worry, child," she said when I told her of the

The Coconut Planter 57

coup dc grace on the hatch, "she's only jealous of you.
It's as plain as "

"The nose on your face is pretty," Bee interrupted.
"Doesn't she look pretty to-day, Adelaide?" Bee
always calls her Adelaide in full.

"Just sweet," Adelaide replied, ignoring my blushes.
"My dear, you almost make me think I'm young again
myself. Perhaps, if I were, I'd be behaving like Miss
Brough."

"Don't you believe her," said Bee. "You'd have all
your work not to be cut out. Adelaide always had a
way with the men."

" Be quiet. Bee," said Adelaide, " or the child will
think us a couple of sillies."

I can't get used to them calling me a child; it does
amuse me so. But I only dabbed on more eau-de-
Cologne and laughed.

"I can quite believe it, Miss Bee," I said. "In fact,
I don't feel too easy in my mind even now, and I regard
this sickness as perfectly providential for me."

"You absurd girl," said Adelaide, smiling faintly;
but, you know, although they are a Mutual Admiration
Society, Limited, I can see it's true; Adelaide must have
been sweetly pretty once. It's the kind of prettiness
that fades early, but it leaves the sweetness still there.

Nev and I have both wondered how she comes to be
an old maid, but Bee told me that the man she was
engaged to died a week before the wedding, and Ade-
laide could never get over it. It's sad, isn't it? And
what made it sadder was it was such a simple kind of
accident. It was a hot night, and he had gone out on
the balcony of his room to smoke a cigarette, and he
must have sat on the rail and overbalanced — probably
he got drowsy. They found him next morning. Poor
Adelaide ! No wonder the memory of it stays with her.
Heigho, I suppose we've all got a little hurt tucked

58 The Coconut Planter

away somewhere. I mustn't get to thinking I'm the
only one.

Bee is quite different. She's rather plain, but
awfully jolly; she says she always had a good time
when she was a girl, and she likes now to see others
having it in their turn. She beams at me quite benev-
olently when she sees me talking to Billy or Nev or
"Gordon dear," but she thinks like the old maid who
said what did she want with a husband when she had a
dog that growled, a parrot that swore, and a cat that
stopped out all night ? She's got enough to live on,
and doesn't need anyone to look after her. So she and
Adelaide just live together and wander round the world
as the fit takes them. I guess it's partly on Adelaide's
account, too, she hasn't married; they think the Avorld
of each other. It's rather nice to see love like that
between women, don't you think?

Well, if I don't stop writing Adelaide will think I'm
never coming.

CHAPTER X

Well, I can't say I think much of Port Moresby. It
is most disappointing. You'd think the capital of a
country would be the prettiest place in it, but Port
Moresby isn't a bit. It doesn't even look tropical,
except for a plantation of coconut palms round Govern-
ment House and the dirty native villages away down
the beach, and native canoes and dug-outs trailing
round every now and again. They — the canoes — are the
quaintest-looking objects — very slender and long, with
a mat sail, some of them with the prow carved and
decorated with shells, and all with that outrigger on
the side like they put on children's toy boats to make
them ride steady.

Mr. Henderson laughed at my disappointment, and
explained that the town lies in what they call the barren
belt — it fringes the coast for about eighty miles and
runs some thirty inland— and that, when we reached
Samarai, we should have all the beauty and tropicalness
we wanted. But one thing I did admire was the back-
ground of mountains; they tower up one above the
other, and the Owen Stanley Range, behind the rest,
broods over them in clouded mystery.

Although even here they say there is beautiful
scenery as close as a day's journey from the Port.
There are big falls in the Laloki Valley for one, and
then there are the quaint tree-houses you find in the
Ekiri villages. They showed me pictures of them. The
natives build them right in the top branches of a tree
and thatch in between the leaves over a little platform.

59

6o The Coconut Planter

But think of the number of steps they have to cHmb
up and down ! Two-storey houses aren't in it, are they?
And you would get a glorious rocking on a windy
night ! The only trouble is you have to take a lot of
trappings with you if you want to see these things, as
you have to camp out. There are no hotels up there
yet ; but when people realise what a glorious place it is
to go for a holiday, there soon will be.

And, oh, I forgot the reef coming in — that is beauti-
ful enough to satisfy anybody. It's because of the reef
and the wonderful harbour it makes that they have the
capital there. The reef extends for about five miles,
and the only break in it is just a narrow opening, where
you come into Port Moresby, and, as the harbour is
several miles big, you can go quite far in a tiny fishing
boat without danger. It's out to the reef they go
dynamite fishing. Of course, it's illegal, but the men
up here are all crazy on it, and they do it just the same.
Law doesn't worry them much in Port Moresby, even
if they have got a whole live white policeman.

We spent about three days there, and, as far as we
could judge, the magistrate spends most of his time
jailing white citizens for drunkenness and natives for
being on the streets after nine o'clock without a permit.
When things get more exciting he can try Europeans
for killing birds of paradise and Goura pigeons and
natives for murder.

Funnily enough, there were cases of both being
tried while we were there, and the different sentences
that were imposed tickled our sense of humour. The
natives got three months each and the white men four-
teen. Three for killing men and fourteen for killing a
bird. The sentences did seem disproportionate to us,
but, of course, you've got to live in a place to under-
stand its values, and they look on the natives up there
as just children, that it's no use punishing too severely

The Coconut Planter 6i

when they can't understand how they have offended.
Murder is one of their regular occupations, but, of
course, they are more severely dealt with when the
victim is a white man. I believe one was once hung
for that.

Tropical places are quaint though. I found it all
fascinating. It was so different from anything I'd seen
before. I liked to wander round the place finding out
all I could. Nev used to laugh at me, for it was all
stale to him; he has been in Papua some time, you see.

But even the dirty little native boys, who used to
come and dive off the ship for money, fascinated me.
One day we got them terribly excited ; we threw them
silver paper covered chocolates, and they rushed for
those even harder than the money. You see, kiddies
are much the same — brown or white.

I asked one small boy what he was going to buy
with the fistful of coppers he was holding, and he told
me bread and tobacco. Nev says they simply adore
bread, and, when a youngster gets a shilling — the local
baker charges natives a shilling and white folks seven-
pence a loaf — he goes off and buys some, and then all
the other kids follow him about begging for a bite like
white children do with sweets. They get it, too, for
they are awfully generous with each other; anything
they've got, even the puff of a cigarette, they hand
along to all their near neighbours. The only things
they seem to keep to themselves are their waist-towel and
their key. Nev told me that, as soon as a native gets
enough money, he buys a box in w^hich to keep his pet
particular treasures, and the key he sports round his
neck as an ornament. We saw lots wearing them.

They are very fond of ornamenting themselves. The
men all wear fresh flowers stuck in their hair, and
combs; and they have armlets, too, so tight they look
as if they must hurt. They are franker about their

62 The Coconut Planter

vanity than civilised men, aren't tiiey ? But ugh ! their
ears — they made me feel sick at first; they all wear
loads of heavy rings in them, which drag the lobes
right down on their shoulders. Truly they do, I'm not
exaggerating. When they are young their ears are
split and the rings threaded on the lobe itself, and the
weight gradually drags it down thinner and thinner as
they grow, till it looks like a thread of wire, not flesh,
and if they want to add any more rings they split it
again, thread them on, and let it heal up. And then
people talk about what we women endure for the sake
of vanity !

I was quite sorry to leave in the end, even if Port
Moresby wasn't pretty. I almost wish my coconut land
was here instead of at Woodlark, for everybody has
been so kind to us all. But they mobbed us for another
ulterior reason, and besieged our baker on board trying
to steal bread from him. You see, they were in the
throes of a bread strike when we arrived, and, as one
boy, who knew Nev, pathetically told us, they were so
tired of scones for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nev
thereupon invited him down to the boat for a meal, and
he said we had saved his digestion, if not his life.

He was an amusing boy. His name is Arnold, and
he's on the wireless station here; he made us laugh by
the droll way he told us about it. It seems they have
only one baker in the town, and every now and again
he goes on the booze for such a prolonged stretch that
he gets a week or ten days for it. Of course, while
he's in jail the townsfolk get no bread, and sometimes,
when he comes out, he sulks and won't bake till his fit
of temper wears off.

One time, Mr. Arnold said, they got so fed up with
the scone diet every housewife had to supply, that the
townsfolk signed a round robin asking the magistrate
to let the baker off. He'd been in a week then, and

The Coconut Planter 63

had another week to go, but, after some consideration,
he was let out on the understanding that he went straight
back to work without any sulks and supplied the famish-
ing township. It sounds like a bit of Gilbert and
Sullivan, doesn't it? But it's quite true.

Life up here does seem to hold a comic opera
element.

But goodness me. I started off to describe the reef.
I never saw such colours in my life. We all gathered
in a body on the top deck under the bridge and watched
in silence. The water was every colour in the world.
It was real green and palest blue and purple and pink
and yellow — it truly was, as yellow as butter, and little
drickles of white slipping across it here and there where
the reef touched the surface. Nev said it reminded him
of the big vats at a smelting w'orks where all the rain-
bows of the world lie in a glory of gold-green slime.

I wouldn't have thought he would have appreciated
beauty so much — unless on a w^oman ; he likes it there
well enough. He loves my hair; he teases me and says
I must have a nigger strain in me, because it is so
black. The other night it was so windy it tumbled
down and fell all over me; I've got a lot of hair, and
he wound his hands in it and held it up against his
face. "What do you put on your hair. Sunny?" he
asked; "it has the daintiest scent." And when I said
I didn't put anything at all he suddenly let it go and
pushed it back to me. "Put it up," he commanded;
and, as I stared at him : " Put it up when I tell you, or
you'll be sorry."

His voice was abrupt and calm as usual, but some-
how there was a kind of tone in it that made me do as
he said, quickly. Sometimes I feel a tiny bit scared of
Nev. It's a horrid thing to say about a friend, but I
don't think I'd like to be stranded with him too far
away from other folk. Of course, Nev is a gentleman.

64 The Coconut Planter

but he's a good bit of a savage, too; and I'm not sure
which would come uppermost. These wild islands seem
to bring the lawlessness out in men; I've noticed it
more in Nev since we got into these waters— unless it's
only I'm getting to know him better.

Perhaps I'm scared because he fascinates me a bit.
I hate admitting it, but, to be perfectly honest with
myself, I know he does, and what exasperates me is I'm
not sure I even like him; I certainly wouldn't trust
him. What queer things women are ! I believe his
very brutality attracts me. And he is brutal; I am
surer of it every day. I hate him for it, and yet — and
yet it's interesting. I never would have believed it
could be. That shows you how different things are,
when you meet them, from what you imagine. When-
ever I've read of women sticking to men who are cruel
to them, and even caring for them, I've wondered how
they could be so poor-spirited. Now I think I
understand.

I don't mean that I would put up with it. I don't
think I would. I'd be too proud, but I can understand
how some women could. There are, apparently, ways
of being cruel that are more powerful than kindness.
All women have in them a streak of the dog that only
truly adores where it is mastered. My streak's very
small, but it's there, I find; and so I can understand.

How different Billy is. He's really refreshing after
Nev ; he is so straightforward and decent and clean- —
especially clean. You seem to feel it radiating from
him like a shower. I always wish I were better after
I've been talking to him. Perhaps it is because he
thinks such a heap of me; he told me to-night I was
the most charming woman he'd ever met in his life, and
he guessed he'd remember me for a good number of
years, and he'd find it hard to forget me — maybe ever.

I felt so ashamed after he had told me, for I made

The Coconut Planter 65

him say it. He didn't know I made him, but I did. I
wanted to know what he thought of me, for he is most
tantalisingly reticent in his opinions of people, and,
although I knew he liked me, I never dreamt he
thought as much of me as all that, or I would never
have made him say it. I felt as if I'd settled down
to hear a comic song, and got a hymn.

Truly, I felt so uncomfortable, for he was very dear
and grave and boyish about it; he doesn't find it easy
to say what he feels, and I felt I deserved smacking
for prying into his heart like that. I sat silent after he
had told me. I felt I wanted to smile and wipe my
eyes and kiss him all in one, but, of course, I didn't.

But I was very subdued for the rest of the night.
When Nev came up he plagued me to know what had
given me my Puritan mood, but I wouldn't tell him.

CHAPTER XI

Nev took me to the "pictures" last night. It was the
most funnily conducted show I've ever been to. The
"pictures" are run by the man who owns the hotel up
here, and the iceworks and half the rest of the industries.
They are held in a kind of shed next door to the hotel,
at the sweet fancy of the promoter. Generally they have
a show about once a fortnight, or when a boat comes in ;
and a notice is displayed outside the hotel, for the benefit
of the inhabitants, about five or six in the afternoon
stating that a show will be given that night.

But that is only a probability and not proof
positive. It's no use making a fuss if they should
decide not to have it after all. You get it impressed on
you here that patience and longsuffering are virtues.

We had to exercise them, too, although we did get
a show in the end. We only went because there was
nothing else to do. It was too black a night to go for
a walk, and, anyway, there's nowhere to walk in Port
Moresby except along the beach. On the other side of
the town there are only hilltracks, where you lose your
breath and tumble over stones. We were tired to death
of the boat, and we wanted to go somewhere and have
a yarn, so when we were told there would probably be
pictures, Nev hailed the idea with delight.

We were warned it was no use to go early, so, a
little after eight we started to stroll up to the picture
palace. But when we arrived we found we were the
only audience. Nev asked the man at the door if he
were sure there were going to be pictures. He said he

66

The Coconut Planter 67

wasn't, but if enough people turned up to make it
worth while — maybe. So Nev suggested we'd better
wander round a bit till we saw what was going to
happen.

Accordingly, we did a wander down past the tennis
courts nearly to the beach, and fell into the ruts the
street is liberally provided with, and landed back at the
palace about five-and-twenty to nine. But this time
there were four adults besides ourselves and two
childrcMT, and the man was more hopeful about there
being a show. So Nev told him we'd take seats and
await developments. Accordingly, we made ourselves
comfy in two roomy chairs and waited. After another
ten minutes, five more people dawdled in, and the man,
deciding that there was a large enough audience to
justify showing, came round to collect the damage.

I don't remember much what the pictures were
about. I'm afraid we didn't pay much attention. In
fact, every time one of us was arrested by some situa-
tion and asked the other what the plot was, neither of
us could tell — but we had a lovely talk.

It was a very cosy place for talking. The palace
itself (all picture palaces are "palaces," aren't they?)
was rather like a galvanised iron barn, very airy and
draughty. It got a bit too draughty for me towards
the end, for the night turned almost cold, and I had to
sit on my feet in turns to keep them warm. The chairs
were just delightful ; they were all canvas deck-chairs,
very large and roomy, and set at the most enticing
angle; before you realised it you were lolling right back
feeling you'd like to stop there all night, and, as there
were so few there we talked quite freely without the
least chance of being overheard.

Just as well, too. I never dreamt any man would
say the things Nev does. He's perfectly appalling at
times. I suppose that's where his fascination comes in

68 The Coconut Planter

— he's himself. Anyone that has really the courage to
be himself instea'd of what other people think he ought
to be, can't help but be interesting. Any truth compels
interest, even if the interest is aversion.

He says I'm interesting too. I felt secretly flattered,
though I tried to take it calmly. You see, he's told me
before I'm pretty and charming and all that, but to find
I can really appeal to his intellect is a far bigger thing.
I do to Billy's, I know; he thinks I'm cleverer than
he. I'm not. He's a real smart engineer, Nev says,
but his knowledge is purely practical. History and
myths and things like that he has never had the time
or inclination to study, and I do know a bit about them,
because they are the things that always interested me,
and sometimes, when I get to telling him things without
thinking, for I never mean to be priggy, he sits and
looks at me in such a fashion I get self-conscious.

"Gee! " he said one day when something he'd said
had led me into a little dissertation on the Holy Roman
Empire, " no one'd ever guess to look at you you knew
things like that. I believe I'd never get tired of hearing
you talk."

And so I felt a bit uplifted when Nev, too, found
there was something else to me besides just femininity.

"Do you think so— truly, Nev?" I said. "But if
you knew me better I'm afraid you'd find at the bottom
I'm ordinary."

"Of course you're ordinary," Nev replied, with
damping truthfulness. "All women are alike and
ordinary for three-quarters of them; they differ in the
fourth quarter, and your fourth isn't like any I've struck
before. It's a sort of unknown quantity that's always
upsetting my calculations. It's the bit of you I don't
like," he went on, with his queer mixture of fun and
rudeness; "it's not nearly as nice as the other three-
quarters of you, but "

The Coconut Planter 69

"It's why you spend your time with the other three-
quarters? " I said.

"H'm — ml" said Nev, and surveyed me thought-
fully. "A shrewd deduction ; I half believe it is."

"Nev," I said irrelevantly, "have you got any
sisters ? "

"Two," said Nev. "Why?"

"Don't they ever tell you what a rude beast you are
to girls?"

"They rarely see me with girls," Nev replied. "I've
never been home for more than a month or two since I
was eighteen. But I'm not rude, Sunny."

"That's news," I said; "what are you then?"

"Just considerate," Nev replied, with a glint of
mischief in his eye. "If I let you see my nice real self
you might fall in love with me. And that would be a
calamity."

"Who for?" I asked pertly.

"You ! " Nev answered. "I'm no good to any one
girl."

"How noble of you to distribute your smiles among
us all," I said. "I didn't expect such unselfishness
from you. What are you, pray — a company for the
promotion of feminine happiness, or what?"

"Something of the sort," Nev replied. Sarcasm can
never pierce his good opinion of himself. "All the
same, to get back to the point, I never can imagine
myself sticking to one girl and being satisfied with
her."

I felt a tiny bit ruffled. "You would," I said, "if
you once really loved a particular girl. No one would
be able to fill her place."

"But I haven't got any particular place to be filled,"
Nev argued. "I mean there're so many nice girls in
the world. If you lose one, there are plenty more,
nearly or quite as nice, ready to take her place."

70 The Coconut Planter

"You seem to think you can do as you like with
girls," I said indignantly.

"Well," said Nev with an enigmatic little smile,
"can't I?"

"That's a question only your own experience can
answer," I said coldly; "and please let go my hand,
my hair's blowing into my eyes; 1 want to push it
back."

"You can do it with your other hand," Nev replied,
disregarding my struggle, and a gentle malice in his
gaze. "Oh, you girls, the tiniest bit of frankness and
off you go on your high horses. None of you can
stand cold truth. Doesn't the fourth bit of you. Sunny,
know that men don't regard women in the novelette
style you're brought up to believe in ? "

"If it doesn't," I said, "acquaintance with you
should have taught me." But insensibly I felt less
cross. That's the queer power he has — he is disgust-
ingly, revoltingly vain, and yet, at the back of it, he
is so reasonable that you feel bound to respect his views,
even while you detest them.

And vain as it sounded, it isn't merely vanity on
Nev's part to know he can twist girls round his finger.
I know he can, and he'd be a fool if he didn't know it.
It's in some men and women to influence whomso-
ever they choose, isn't it? I suppose when you boil
it down it's just what we call "sex attraction" — it's
easy enough to give a name to what we don't under-
stand.

And Nev has got it sure. If I were twenty and a
girl, instead of twenty-three and a widow, I should be
mad about him myself. Why, although I know he
doesn't care a snap of his fingers for me really, I am
quite jealous of the other girls— even of other girls he
has known. Once when he had pulled my hair about,
it was so hopelessly untidy I took it right down and

The Coconut Planter 71

did it up again with him for mirror to tell me if it was
straight.

He held my hairpins for me, and gave them one by
one, and, when I had finished, he said : " It looks better
than it did before ; it beats me how you girls can fix
it up like that in a jiffy. I'll never forget one lass I
was seeing home from a dance, she did hers up again
as we were walking up the path to the house. I reckoned
she was the smartest up-to-date, but you've got her
beaten, Sunny."

I laughed, but do you know, I felt I detested that
girl, whose name I don't even know. Sometimes I get
quite vexed to know I am just one of a crowd to Nev,
and that to him, as he says, there have been, and will
be again, plenty more as nice.

But I like him for being frank about it; though his
frankness is clever, too, for it would pique lots of girls
into trying to make him like them better than the rest,
and, when you're trying to make a man like you you're
mighty apt to get to like him more than you intend.

And the rest would think he couldn't mean it or
he would never admit it to them. The old cynical
maxim is right. Truth often is the smartest policy.
It's bewildering. We're all suspicious of the obvious.

CHAPTER XII

There's another thing that upset me in Port Moresby.
I didn't know whether to put it down or not, but I think
I will. I hate talking about it; it seems to keep the
past alive when I want to forget it, and yet I can't
forget all at once.

I heard Terry talked about.

Somehow it seemed to bring him back again, more
real than he's ever been since he went away. You
see, this is the place he came to, and the wireless station
here is where he worked. I even got them to point out
to me the boarding-house where he used to live,
although they didn't know why I asked where it was.
He -once told me the name of the woman who kept it,
and I took Nev for a walk past there and tried to
imagine how Terry used to go in and out day after
day.

When I saw groups of men on the hotel veranda
or, with towels on their arms, strolling down to the
baths, I imagined how Terry would have been one of
them. I played tennis on the very court down near
the beach where he used to play. I met some of the
people I had learnt to know by name through his
letters.

And I met the girl they said he was engaged to,
and I hated her even now, but I don't believe Terry
made love to her from the way she spoke. I made her
talk about him, after we had played a set of tennis
together; we were isolated for a moment, during after-
noon tea, on a bench, and I determined to make the

72

The Coconut Planter 73

plunge. I hardly know why I did, but, somehow, as
I sat beside her, I felt so desperately jealous that she
had seen and known Terry since I that I felt I must
find out what she did know.

I was revolving how I could introduce his name
without being too pointed when, as if my will had
gone through to her mind, she startled me by saying :

"I'm afraid you'll think me very curious, but are
you by any chance the Miss Shale Terry Rossiter
knew ? "

For a minute I was too disconcerted to speak, and
then I managed to say "Yes."

The girl's face brightened. "I'm glad," she said.
"I wondered if you could be when I heard your name;
it's rather uncommon, and I'm so glad to meet you.

I " She hesitated as I looked rather searchingly at

her. I was wondering just how much of it was acting
and why she wanted to draw me, but, as I met her
eyes I felt suddenly ashamed of myself ; I realised she
was telling the truth, and impulsively I put my hand
over hers as it lay on the bench between us.

"Thank you," I said. "I — I have heard of you,
too." But even then it was an effort to keep the
resentment out of my voice.

Miss Lowe flushed a little as if she were em-
barrassed. "Do you mind me being frank ? " she asked
quickly, as if she were afraid I'd interrupt. "I suppose
vou heard that— that story about me and Terry. You
don't know how badly I felt about it after I heard of
you. Please do listen," she went on hastily, as I
coloured and half rose. "I do want to explain. It was
all because Terry helped me and — and the man I loved
— I'm engaged to him now," she added softly; and I
saw then that there was a ring on her finger. "I know
you must think me very impertinent to talk to you like
this," she went on, "when I've only just met you, but,

74 The Coconut Planter

you see, I'm afraid that report about us must have hurt
you, and there was nothing in it, you know."

"I am quite aware of that. Miss Lowe," I said icily.
I suppose I was a beast, but, somehow, her words
brought back all the old fury and jealousy, and for a
minute I could have killed her.

She coloured up like a snubbed child, and I could
have bitten my tongue out. " Please go on," I said
with an effort. "I — I didn't mean that."

"It's good of you to listen," she answered, still
flushed, "and I know it sounds dreadful of me to speak
to you about it, but I wanted to tell you it was all my
fault that the rumour got about. I — well, it was I
who really started it. I feel," she went on, getting
pinker than ever, "that I've got to tell you this, dread-
ful as you may think me. I mean, I found out after
from Terry that the rumour had got down to Sydney,
and — and you and — don't you understand, it's not
easy for a girl to tell another girl a thing like this?
But, now Terry's dead, I feel as if I'd got to. It's only
just to him, you see. He wasn't to blame at all; we
were only good friends and, at the time, my people
were very much opposed to Bob Arnold. You've met
him, haven't you ? He told me you had. And I used
Terry as a blind to cover my meetings with Bob. It's
a thing that is often done, isn't it? I had no idea I
was hurting any other girl. Terry wasn't the sort to
talk about his affairs to anybody, and so I never knew
there was anyone he cared for specially, until he told
me we'd have to stop the report about us, as it had got
to Sydney and was vexing someone for whom he cared
more than anyone else in the world. That was the first
I'd ever heard about you. Miss Shale, and you don't
know how glad I am to have met you and been able to
tell you, and please don't think too badly of me, will
you?"

The Coconut Planter 75

Someone came up then and asked her to play
another set, and Nev came and sat down next me, and
I didn't have time to realise what she had been saying.
But, when I did have time to think it over, I felt as if
a little of the hurt had gone. Just a little. I'm glad
he played square in one way, even if he didn't in
others. But I wonder what Miss Lowe would have
said if she'd known it was not Terry's sweetheart to
whom she was justifying him, but his widow? I
suppose I am a widow, but it's hard to realise it at
times.

I got Billy to take me over the wireless station.
Somehow I felt I didn't w-ant Nev to go with me there.
He asked Mr. Arnold to show^ us over. I think he
knew why I w'anted to see it, for he was very kind. He
managed unobtrusively to tell me quite a lot about
Terry. I saw the key he used to work with and the
chair he sat in — it was so strange and far away, I didn't
seem able to realise it, and in another way it was so
real at times I half turned expecting to see him beside
me. There, where he had lived and worked, it didn't
seem possible he could be dead.

And, as if Mr. Arnold were thinking the same thing,
he said suddenly :

"Poor old Terry, we were all fond of him. He used
to be the life of the place; it was an awful shock to us
when they brought down the news that the natives had
done for him, but he was always an adventurous
beggar, and you can't trust them farther than you can
see them."

I nodded. For the first time since I had heard, I
wanted to cry, but Billy's remark startled me into
restraint.

"It has never been proved he is dead, has it?" he
asked.

Both Mr. Arnold and I stared at him, and Mr.

76 The Coconut Planter

Arnold said after a pause: "Never proved, certainly;
but all the evidence went to show it. Why, did you
know him ? "

"No," Billy answered after a moment's hesitation.
"But I've heard about it, and it seems to me that the
mere fact of a man wandering away from his party,
and later his helmet being found, with bloodstains and
the signs of a struggle, isn't proof positive of his being
dead."

"It's next door to it if you know anything of the
Papuan native," Mr. Arnold retorted; "especially that
lot on the Fly River. Why, man, they're cannibals,
and the most bloodthirsty, cruel brutes in creation. One
of their pleasant little habits is to bash a hole in the
side of a living captive's head and scoop the brains
out and eat them from the barely dead body. Let's
hope poor old Terry did die at once. That's the only
use they have for prisoners. Oh, I say, Burroughs,
catch Miss Shale — she's going to faint ! What a
thoughtless beast I am ! "

But I managed to pull myself together. "I'm all
right," I said shakily, "only — only it sounds rather
dreadful, doesn't it?" And as soon after as I could I
got away.

Poor Terry ! I don't think I realised it before, but
now I've seen the place and the people I do. What a
lonely, dreadful death he had. Somehow, now, I don't
seem to feel bitter any more — not very. I cried the
night we left Port Moresby. Terry didn't seem the sort
who could die young. He was so joyous. It seems a
pity, such a pity.

CHAPTER XIII

That Miss Brough is a downright cat. She took more
than twenty minutes over her bath to-day, just because
she knew I was waiting. If it wasn't twenty-five
minutes, it wasn't far short. I never knew before
anyone would take the trouble to be horrid in such
ridiculously small ways.

Baths are a terrible trial on this boat. I suppose
she hasn't room for everything, but really one bath-
room among all us women is the dizzy limit. Of course,
it's only for a short season the boat carries so many
passengers, but I really think the man who planned
her must have laboured under the delusion that women
don't care whether they have baths or not. You're
pretty well penalised in regard to them, unless you
want to get up in the middle of the night.

But, naturally, we all want to get up about the
same time, and so there's quite a queue of us tailing
on from the bathroom door waiting our turn. You
aren't supposed to take more than ten minutes accord-
ing to the placard on the door, but there's only about
one other girl, besides me, who takes any notice
of it.

Still, most of them try to hurry even if they can't,
and Miss Brough doesn't so much as try. She is
never under twenty minutes, and she gets the rest of
us ramping mad. This morning when I got down
there was one ahead of me holding sponge and towel
outside the door, and three others arrived after, and
still she held the fort ; we could have slain her.
F 77

jS The Coconut Planter

However, we decided to make the best of it ; so, in
desperation, we sat down in the saloon and had a party
in our bathcaps and kimonos. The man that built the
Morinda couldn't have been married, I think; he hasn't
the slightest idea of convenience or comfort in things
like this. To get to the bathroom from any cabin at
all you have to trail through the saloon, with the
stewards setting breakfast.

And you are sure to run into half the men you
know wandering round in their bathgowns, too, or, if
they think they can shoot across without meeting any-
one they will chance their luck just in their pyjamas.
It gives you a real family feeling, and you have to treat
it as a joke.

I don't know what we looked like this morning. We
were certainly a kaleidoscope of colours. My kim. is
blue and my bathcap has blue spots in it, and Diana
was in crimson embroidered silk, and one of the others'
pink swore loudly beside her. Still, we enlivened the
wait considerably. And Nev shot by from their bath-
room in bright green pyjamas, and most carefully didn't
see us. I was surprised. I didn't think Nev could be
embarrassed in any circumstances, but perhaps it being
five of us to one of him was the reason.

And then " Gordon dear " came down from his deck
cabin in a peacock-blue robe and with shaving soap
decorating his ears and cheek, and made a hurried dive
round the corner to his bath and, of course, tripped on t
his gown and dropped his sponge, and — we simply had L
to laugh. It's not a bit of use trying to be conventional p
and proper on this boat. Why, the very arrangements ?
won't let you. I suppose, too, we don't mind now, as i
there are so few of us and we have all got friendly.

How blue everything is, everything except us. You
couldn't feel low-spirited when the sun is so gay and
sparkly on the water. I did yesterday, though, when

The Coconut Planter 79

we were leaving Port Moresby. I think what Miss
Lowe told me about Terry, and going up to the wire-
less station, made me miserable ; it brought it all back
to me so, and for a while I wanted him just desperately.
I felt he couldn't be dead and that he would come back
to me if I shut my eyes and waited hard. Idiot I am
when, if he were alive, he probably wouldn't want to
come back at all. Heigho ! I wonder if true love does
exist anywhere — the love they write about that lasts
through time and absence. I wonder.

I feel gentler about it now. Maybe, it wasn't so
much Terry's fault. Maybe, I expected too much of
him. He was only a boy and, even if he was older
than I in years, I was older than he in my ways and
thoughts, and he could only love me in a boy's way,
which is fierce and hot, but hasn't the steady strength
of a tried man. I can see that now% though I'm afraid
I was too young myself then to make allow'ances. Now
I can, and I can even feel a little sympathy for him.
He would have stuck to me, I know. Terry w-as true
enough, but once he had got away from the intoxica-
tion of my nearness, I think he must sometimes have
thought he had been a bit of a fool to have saddled
himself with a responsibility like a wife so soon.

You see, there's such a lot of fun in the world he
could have had yet. I've begun to realise it since I
came up here. 1 couldn't down in Sydney — my life
had been too shut-in and narrow. But now I see there
are heaps of other interests and ambitions to fill a man's
life besides love and women.

I think realising that has made me feel more gently
about Terry. It seems to me that if you can only once
understand how another person must have felt, you can't
help but sympathise. I'm glad I came up here. If I'd
stayed in Sydney, maybe I'd have remained hard and
bitter; I think I would have. But now— I won't say I

8o The Coconut Planter

forgive Terry, because it seems to me, after all, I have
nothing to forgive. We were both young — that's all;
and we did a foolish thing, and we neither of us under-
stood • nor made quite enough allowance for the
influence of each other's surroundings.

Ah, well, Terry, my dead boy sweetheart, let's for-
give each other our blindness and make a new start.
1 here, and you wherever you now may be. Remember
me kindly, if God lets you remember, as I shall think
of you, for our love was sweet once, and then — forget,
as I am going to forget.

How blue the sea is. I can't help repeating it. It
looks as if the mermaids have all been using "blue" to
bleach their foam frocks. And I shall have to go to my
cabin in a minute and wash my hands, they simply
stink — no less positive verb can express their odour.
I've been eating pawpaw, and, though they taste
delicious, I've never heard such a smell. That's not a
confusion of terms really, for, as Nev said, pawpaw is
an odour that talks.

I think their colour is the most fascinating thing
about them — it's a glorious deep gold, and their small
round black seeds look so French and coquettish
nestling inside. Billy bought quite a dozen or more
before we left the port, as he has developed a regular
passion for them, and eats them all day long. He
came along just now and tempted me, but I guess it
will take a liberal supply of pumicestone and powder
to make me fit to associate with again.

There's more than me taken with a tidy fit. Some
of the natives we took on at Port Moresby are sitting
on the stern combing their hair. I must call Nev to
come and have a look ; we had a heated argument
yesterday as to whether it was possible to comb hair
like they have. You know, they are all types in these
islands, verv much intermingled — Samoans and Fijians

The Coconut Planter 8i

and many other sorts; and so some of the men and
women have short frizzy hair close up to their heads,
and others a mop that stands for more than a foot
straight out, like a halo.

It was one of the latter we were discussing. And
now here he is with a long wooden comb teasing out
thin little strands bit by bit. His patience is exemplary.
I wouldn't like to comb such a quantity and, at the
rate he is progressing, it will take him days to get
through it once.

I wish Nev would come up though. I want to talk
to him. I feel in a mood to be frivolous and smart.
I mean as to my tongue, although Billy told me just
now I looked smart, too. All the more reason that
pig of a Nev ought to come and admire me. I put
on a pale-blue linen frock to-day that I really wanted
to keep clean for Woodlark, just because he said I
ought to wear pale blue. What geese women are —
always putting themselves out to please some man or
another. I believe it's in our systems and, like truth
and other things, it will out.

I'd go and see where he is, but I might find him
with Miss Brough, so I think I'll stop where I am. I
suppose Billy will be back in a minute anyway; he's
gone down with Mr. Henderson to see if they can't
rake up a bit of food for the pigs. We are carrying a
couple of cases of pigs to Samarai, and the poor things
haven't had a bite to eat or drink since they were put
on board yesterday afternoon.

We asked Mr. Eraser about it just now, and he said
they'd have to wait till they were delivered to-morrow
morning. And when we pointed out the cruelty of it
he said it wasn't his fault; the owners wouldn't supply
food for such a short journey, and you couldn't expect
the ship to feed all the livestock cargo put on board at
her expense. It seems dreadful that in these times of

82 The Coconut Planter

societies for prevention of cruelty, and things like that,
people can still treat animals so.

Mr. Henderson is indignant about it, too, for he
loves all animals. So he and Billy are gone to the
cook this minute to see if they can get a few scraps
for them — not that I see how they are going to give
food to them if they do get it, for the pigs are boarded
up, two by two, head to tail, in kerosene cases, or
what look like them, with just room enough to stand,
but no chance to move an inch either way. It is a
shame.

They were nearly as cruel to the cattle we carried
from Cairns to Port Moresby. That was a three days'
run, and the cattle were dreadfully squashed, though
not as badly as the pigs. Why, the seas kept washing
over the poor things all this morning, and every time
they squealed most pitifully. And, boarded up as they
were, they hadn't a chance to get dry or warm again.
Mr. Fraser is a little cruel, I think, for, when I drew
his attention to it, he said if they got wet it would keep
them from feeling thirsty.

The cattle did have room to move a little, but their
shippers didn't send any food — even for three whole
days. Mr. Fraser managed to collect a bit of hay for
them from somewhere. Though he is not very tender-
hearted, he — like Mr. Henderson— said three days with-
out food was over the fence for animals, seasick though
they were, and not very hungry. He said the ship
ought to refuse to carry livestock unless the consignors
supplied food with them, but, of course, they daren't
do that without orders from their company, and I don't
suppose anyone in the head offices would realise how
brutal it is to the poor animals, unless they had seen it.

Poor things, they do look seedy. But I never saw
anything so comic in my life as getting them ashore
at Port Moresby. Mr. F'raser first tried to induce them

The Coconut Planter 83

to go along a gangway on to the wharf, but the cattle
didn't see it in that light. They would go anywhere
except on that gangway.

It was as good as a play. The whole morning three
officers were engaged in arguing with the cows, not to
mention several sailors and heaps of natives. It was
these latter provided the comedy. If ever an indignant
cow, who did get kicked and hustled along the wobbly
planks, displayed the slightest interest in anything on
the wharf, there was a hurried rush to the side of
"nigs," and over they would go, hanging on by their
hands. All you could see anywhere would be rows
of fingers and occasionally a head poking cautiously
up above the edge to reconnoitre.

Once even the white customs men got inside their
door and three-quarters shut it. The cattle they ship
up here are not too tame, and they often charge the
men handling them, and the natives are deadly scared
of them, especially since last trip. Mr. Henderson told
us that then a young bull, directly it got on the wharf,
charged everything in sight, and had the wharf cleared
in half a second. He nearly had one man down, who
only saved himself by taking a header into the sea.

But, even if it was a wise precaution, it looked
mighty funny to see these sudden disappearances over
the side; they would grin back rather sheepishly when
we laughed, but they stopped there all the same. I
suppose it was easy for us to laugh ; we were safe, high
up on the deck. I think Mr. Fraser would have rather
had us elsewhere, for he and the rest got considerably
heated trying to persuade those cows that to take one
step on to the gangway didn't mean instant dissolution.

He and Mr. Henderson and the second looked very
spick and span to start with, in their white suits, but
after a short stance with the cattle they were decidedly
streaky; and had we not been there, I think, their

84 The Coconut Planter

language would have been as heated as their looks.
As it was, they were very decorous.

In the end, they had to make a sling of ropes and
lift the cows out with the cranes, one by one. They
looked most unhappy with their four legs sprawled
stiffly out like Noah's Ark animals on a string.

Oh, here comes Nev at last.

I'd pretend not to notice him, only, if I did, ten
to one he'd pay me out by walking past and not speak-
ing to me. He knows how to manage women — the
wretch. I wonder what on earth I like him for. I'm
not sure that I do really, but he interests me. You
see, I don't understand him quite.

CHAPTER XIV

Billy and I have just finished another round of our
tournament. He has won the second rub, so we are
"rub all," and to-morrow we are going to start the
conqueror — the next to-morrow we are out at sea. We
shall be in Samarai for a day or two ; we are nearly
in now. We are lying out at anchor — goodness
and the captain know why, and we shall not go
alongside the wharf until after lunch. That's the latest
bulletin.

Some of them have gone ashore in the launch to
investigate, but I didn't go for two reasons. One, that
Nev went calmly off without asking me if I'd like to go
with him, and two, that I have a bit of a headache and
am glad of the rest till I get some tea.

All the same, I do think Nev might have had the
manners to ask me if I wanted to go ashore; he didn't
go with anyone else, and he's not generally so stuck on
his own company. However, I'm sure I don't care.
But Terry, at least, was always polite. I'm not used to
being made a fuss of one minute and treated like a
doormat the next.

You know, it annoys me sometimes that I don't
matter to Nev more than I do. It isn't for my own
sake I'm riled so much, I think, as a representative of
womanhood. It seems downright disrespectful that a
man, who can make women do what he wants as much
as Nev can, hasn't had to haul down his flag to any one
of us yet. He hasn't, I can tell that. He thinks quite
a heap of himself in consequence, does Mr. Nevil, and

86 The Coconut Planter

I'd like to see him pinked. I wish I could pink him;
it would do him good, and soothe my pride quite a
heap, too.

You know, at times, he's downright rude in his in-
difference. Of course, we're only killing time with
each other. Neither of us really cares. But, even then,
make-believe has its rules and by-laws while you're
playing, and Nev walks all over them. He got me
quite vexed last night. We were talking about women,
and I was trying to find out if he'd ever been really in
love. He saw through my drift in a minute, and
laughed at me.

"Sure," he said, "I'm always in love, Sunny. It's
an occupation that keeps me out of worse mischief."

"Is there worse mischief?" I asked. But he only
laughed again.

"Wait," I said, a little crossly, "till you get the
disease in earnest. Then you won't laugh."

"But I always have it in earnest," he said, with a
twinkle at the back of his eyes.

"Stuff ! " I said inelegantly.

"No, it isn't," he contradicted. "I'll give you the
secret of my escapes, Sunny. It's a dead secret, mind.
Just because I fall in love so deeply it doesn't take me
long to get to the bottom, and then I tumble out on to
the other side — cured. Go right through from a land
of fire to the Antipodes of ice. I go perfectly mad on
a girl, but it has never lasted longer than three months,
up to date."

"Well, all I hope is," I said, still feeling slightly
ruffled on my sex's account, "that when you do get a
wife she gives you a devil of a time."

"Thank you for nothing," he retorted like a provok-
ing schoolboy. "Don't you wish this minute you
might be her to do it?"

And he commenced to hum :

The Coconut Planter 87

// you were just the sort of girl that I could adore.
If you had only got a modest million or more.
Then I next Saturday upon your father would call.
But as it is, you're not that sort of -person at all.

He kept humming the last line over and over in a
soft aggravating undertone as I kept my face resolutely
turned out to sea. I felt in a perfect temper for good-
ness knows what reason, but I was not going to be
idiot enough to let him see it.

But I think he felt my mood, for, of a sudden, he
stopped his humming and, taking my chin in his palm,
turned my face round to meet his laughter.

"Cross, my black opal?" he said; and Nev's voice
can be very sweet when he chooses. "Your hair looks
just like opal now, with the moon upon it. It was your
hair made me notice you first, Sunny. I saw you at
dinner the night we left Sydney ; you were sitting with
your back to me, and I couldn't see your face, but I
said to myself, ' Before many days are over I'll have my
fingers in that tangle.' "

"You conceited wretch," I said, trying to untwist
them. "How did you know I'd let you ? I might have
been quite another sort of girl."

"But if you were," Nev replied equably, "you
wouldn't have hair like this. Sit still, little girl" — his
arm tightening ruthlessly — "and behave."

"That," I retorted, "is what I'm trying to make
you do."

"Never mind my behaviour," Nev said; "charity
begins at home, and people in glass houses should wash
their own windows first. Ah, drat those people. Sunny,
they're coming up to start their confounded peanut
hunt. Flatten your hair down quick and I guess we'd
better start hunting peanuts too, unless we want the
old cats starting on us. Come along." And he
whisked me unobtrusively round the corner and among

88 The Coconut Planter

the group that was spreading off in couples to discover
the hidden nuts.

That's one nice thing about Nev — he always tries to
shield a girl he's philandering with from gossip as
much as he can. The ways he does it are very tiny,
but a woman notices them. That's the reason I forgive
him other things.

We hadn't meant to join the peanut hunt ; we
thought it was all to be downstairs, but when, to our
surprise, they appeared on the boat deck it would have
looked very pointed for us to go on sitting there. As it
was, owing to the clever way he introduced us into the
party, half of them didn't know we hadn't been with
them all the time.

And it wasn't bad fun either. The jpeanuts were
hidden in the most tricky places, on ledges and on life-
buoys and in the angles of chairs. I guess the sailors
must have had a considerable number of burnt matches
to clear up next morning. It's an awfully jolly boat;
we've had lots of parties already, and every now and
again we dance, too.

The dancing gave Miss Brough another chance to
get one in on me. We were having a bit of a hop last
night after dinner, and I was showing Nev a new one-
step I'd picked up from the dancing mistress who
taught at school. It's a very pretty one and rather
tricky, and I was showing him, and another couple
were following us up trying to copy it, when one of the
men went up to her and asked her to dance.

She swept a glance over us. "Oh, thanks," she
drawled, loudlv enough to reach us, "but I'm afraid we
should be in the way; I thought it was a dance, but
it seems we're interrupting a school of instruction."
And now she refers to me as the dancing mistress.

Well, let her ! I'm sure her opinion doesn't
worry me, but I simply can't imagine how any woman

The Coconut Planter 89

can go out of her way like that to be so gratuitously
nasty.

I'm dying to go ashore now. Samarai looks quite
inviting, though we can't see much of it distinctly —
just a jumble of houses along the front and the wharf
gay with the colours of the natives' clothing. The
island is shaped like a cone, flat along the edge and
going up to a real high hill in the middle. The hill is
thick and green, with houses popping out here and
there. Nev says the green is mostly mangoes and
coconuts and crotons. I hope it's as pretty as it pro-
mises to be from here. We had a horrid jolt just now;
there's a perfect pet of an island lying on our port, not
far away, looking like a wee oasis, and when we all
told the captain we wanted to be landed there for a
picnic, he replied that if we landed there we'd probably
have to stay. It's a place where they send diseased
natives. Ugh 1 it seems horrible to think such things
can be in a place that seems as lovely as this.

CHAPTER XV

Samarai is, I should think, the loveliest place in the
whole world. Oh, it is lovely — the dearest, cunningest
little island; you could walk right round it in half an
hour. In fact, you do do so, for there's a wide path
made of white coral sand all round it, and it's the
fashionable and, indeed, the only walk to go.

And all the way the sea gurgles on one hand, the
coconut palms sheltering you from sun or moon on the
other. We went round it by moonlight last evening —
Nev and I ; and, of course, we kept running up against
everyone else off the ship at every turn. That's the
worst of Samarai — its smallness; you can't avoid falling
over every second inhabitant in the space of half an
hour.

But half the people who nominally belong to it live
on rubber and coconut plantations on the mainland or
on one of the dozens of neighbouring islands scattered
about near by. Some within half an hour or so by
launch. People own islands here as you would a
suburban villa, and have a motor boat instead of a car.
It's a kind of tropical Venice with Samarai for its
business and shopping centre, and rather wide water
streets.

What really makes the charm of it is the crowd of
other islands round. From every point of view they
meet your eye, like a lot of Christmas puddings all boil-
ing together in a giant saucepan. We went to one of
the prettiest yesterday afternoon for a bathing party.
It is called Logeia. About twenty of us went, and we

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The Coconut Planter 91

had the jolliest time. Mr. Henderson took us in the
launch, and the idea of His Solemnity — he is terribly
solemn for a young man and good-looking to boot —
mixed bathing upset us all.

However, he didn't come with us farther than the
first beach; he wouldn't leave the launch. We landed
at one beach, you see, and walked for about fifteen
minutes across the island to another where the surf was
better; it was more on the ocean side.

Landing was so funny. There were a few natives'
huts at the edge of the water, and the men hailed the
natives to come and carry us off, for, of course, the
launch could not get within a dozen yards of the shore.
But, when they waded obediently out and I looked at
their naked, oily bodies, I felt I'd sooner stop on board
all day than have them touch me, and some of the other
girls said the same.

And what do you think Nev did ? Like a shot he
slipped overside waist-deep in the water and carried me
off in his arms. I never felt so ridiculous in my life nor
so insecure. I was just like a baby expecting to be
upended any minute, but, you know, it felt rather
nice, too.

Everyone laughed, and then several of the other boys
hopped out and carried the girls they liked best ashore,
and the surplus had to come with the natives. It was
not as bad as I thought it would be, for they don't
carry you baby fashion as Nev and the other boys did ;
they link their hands as we used to do at school, and
you sit on them, with a hand on each pate to steady
yourself while they waddle through the water. They
waddle because they are all smallish men, and even we
girls are no slight weight to carry through water, with
sharp coral under foot as is the case on most of these
beaches.

Anyway, I'll let them take me without a protest

92 The Coconut Planter

next time, for it is really too bad to make the boys get
so wet, even though the air soon dries anything on you.
And then, when we were all marshalled on the beach,
we began an Indian file walk through the jungle. Isn't
it perfectly wonderful how, in places like this, the
growth comes right down to the water's edge ? There
were crotons, with their black and scarlet leaves, and
big red flame trees and sago palms and bracken, grow-
ing right up against the snowy sand beach. It's
indescribably fascinating.

And all the way was the low drip of dampness and
the flare of the hibiscus breaking through the pale
filtered light that crept between the palms. I was
terribly afraid of snakes all the time among the dead
leaves and tangle, but all we saw were butterflies, and
one monstrous black and scarlet spider sitting in his
web minding his own business. We minded ours too;
some of these spiders are worse than snakes.

We had the loveliest bathe; the water wasn't a bit
cold, and it was like being a child again to have to
undress on the beach. There was a small curvy bay
where we were, and the boys went to one end of it, and
we girls to the other, and met in the water. I didn't
want to go, for I'd never been mixed bathing before,
and you do feel a bit shy at first in such scanty supply
of covering, but I didn't like to confess it to anyone.
It soun<^ so priggy nowadays, and, after I'd been in the
water three minutes, I never thought about anything
except how glorious it must be to be a fish. I kept
getting out of my depth; I couldn't resist the tempta-
tion, although they told me it was too risky, as there
are always sharks about these beaches.

But I couldn't help that. Everything looked so gay
and beautiful. Even Nev saw its beauty.

" It's just it," he declared once, as he came up cough-
ing out mouthfuls of surf bubbles. "Sunny, if you

The Coconut Planter 93

girls knew how sweet you looked in bathing suits, you'd
wear them in the streets on summer days. In about
another five minutes, I shall be head over heels in love
with you."

"Nev," I protested, "you oughtn't to say things like
that — really."

"What things?"

"It's not proper," I persisted.

"Why not?"

"Because — well, because it's not; not proper, I
mean, to comment on a girl's appearance when it's —
when it's "

"When it's her own appearance and not the appear-
ance of her clothes," added Nev with perfect gravity.

"Oh, you're just hopeless," I said, with a vexed
laugh; but somehow, as he joined in, the vexation fled,
and our laughter was like the abandon of two happy
children. At times, he is nothing but a boy.

"All right," he said, "I will be good — hopelessly,
awfully, depressingly good, though I'm sure, lass, you
won't like me one little bit if I am."

"Wait and see," I smiled.

"I almost could be good for you," he said, but with
that airy laugh of his that never lets you know just how
much of it he means.

We found the cunningest swing while we were stroll-
ing along the beach ; a big coconut palm had fallen
during some storm, and, while its roots were lying a
good way ashore, its long smooth trunk stretched out
over the beach half a dozen feet above it. Nev and
I sat down on the end nearest the water, and swung
up and down like a gigantic seesaw with both of us on
the one end, until they called us to come to afternoon
tea.

We had that on the beach, sitting on creepers that
would come climbing all over the sand, as if they didn't

G

94 The Coconut Planter

know that respectable vegetation oughtn't to flourish on
a salty soil. It didn't care, and it flung itself in a cheer-
ful tangle among the boles of the coconuts that grew
thickly in a fringe all round the bay. We got some of
the natives to climb up and get us some coconuts. Isn't
it w'onderful the way they skitter up, like a fly going
up the side of a wall ? And they come down like
lightning conductors.

But what is even more wonderful is the way they
husk them. One old fellow sat down and, holding the
nut between his toes, stabbed and tore at the hard green
fibrous covering with a sharp pointed stick and had it
ofT in half a jiffy, just leaving a half-moon tuft with a
twist of fibre hanging to it, so that they could be tied
together in pairs for easy carrying.

You don't realise how wonderful their ease is till you
try to open one yourself. We had one on board this
morning, and Nev and Billy attacked it with a chisel
and a stout penknife, and then it took them much
cussing and a quarter of an hour before they separated
the nut from its clothes.

As I looked round on us lounging about in the sand,
demolishing biscuits and tea, it seemed unbelievable we
were so far from home. I said to myself we were
a picnic party at Bondi or Coogee, but I couldn't
keep up the illusion long when "Gordon dear"
remarked :

"You takem sugar along him sinuabada white
calico ? "

That's me, if you don't mind ! White calico ! And
my best muslin frock ! But the natives call everything
calico, and you have to talk this queer jargon if you
want to make yourself understood. It's the language
traders have talked in the Pacific since traders began ;
they call it beche de mer. It isn't as easy as it sounds
either; it takes a little while to acquire, although, before

The Coconut Planter 95

you've been in the islands more than half a minute, you
begin to pick up a few words.

It's funny in places like this how many native words
creep into the English even as spoken among the
whites, isn't it? For instance, up here you never hear
anyone say food; breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it's all
"kaikai." And when you want to explain that anyone
is no class at all you say, "E no kori kori," or, as they
sometimes translate it, "He is another kind."

That's what Nev said about Miss Brough to-day,
and I was quite cattishly glad. It's the first time he's
mentioned her since her remark to me on the hatch,
though I'd noticed he wasn't with her nearly as much
as he used to be.

I'm glad he thinks she's another kind to me. I
wouldn't be like her for something.

CHAPTER XVI

We have just had a glorious bathe. I think I'd like to
live in Samarai for the rest of my life. Imagine, we've
been swimming off the side of the ship in about fifteen
feet of water, all of us, officers and passengers. It
seems so comic to be bobbing about with heaps of small
yachts and rowboats anchored among you. And it is
such fun. Mr. Henderson and I had a race from one
boat to another, but, of course, he beat me.

Bee and Adelaide were terribly worried about us
yesterday morning, swimming in such deep water;
they were sure we would be eaten by sharks, but, once
in, we didn't have time to think about them. Besides,
there was such a noisy crowd of us the sharks would
have been the ones to feel nervous, and, another thing,
Mr. Henderson said they seldom venture between a
ship and the shore when she's as close in as the
Morinda is lying.

Billy didn't come in; he doesn't like swimming
much, but he stood on the deck and threw some money
in for us to dive for, as we did to the kiddies at Port
Moresby. There was the wildest excitement going for
it, although we only retrieved one threepence, which
Mr. Henderson got. I did get a sixpence right near
the boat, quite fifteen feet down the chief said it was,
but it slipped through my fingers as I got to the
surface, and, since my ears seemed bursting, and I felt
as if I'd never be able to breathe again, I let it stop
where it went.

You see, I came up with the sixpence in one hand

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The Coconut Planter 97

and a small oyster in the other. I didn't know which
was which till I got to the top — the water there magni-
fies things, perhaps because we were in greater depth
than I'd swum in before. I was so mad when I
dropped it. The hard part is we couldn't see clearly-
enough to dive off the wharf to where the money lay,
we had to swim over till we thought we had located it,
and then duck down and wiggle to the bottom. It
takes quite a lot of breath to get down fourteen or
fifteen feet.

I think I was pleasedest, though, with what Nev
said. As I trailed up the wharf to where my kimono
reposed by a heap of coal — my wet hair nearly
smothering me — he said, reaching for his own gown :

"My word. Sunny, I had no idea you could swim
like that. You're a real all-round little sport."

That doesn't sound so very special written, but
because of the way Nev said it, I felt more pleased with
it than with any nice remark he's made since we met.

I've just been up to the post office with Billy. We
all do that several times a day ; it's only two minutes'
walk from the boat. I've sent a postcard to Cicely —
she collects stamps, and she will love the Papuan one ;
it has a native canoe on it, which looks for all the
world like a porpoise. I thought it was at first, some
of the sails are shaped like a fish's fin.

From the post office we decided to continue our stroll
round the island, and, used as we are becoming to comic
sights, we saw the funniest we've seen yet. It was a
dozen or so native prisoners cutting grass. That doesn't
sound very comic, of course, but the way they were
setting about it was. They were cutting it on the path-
side ; each native was armed with a long flat knife that
looked like the half of a pair of shears, and blunt at
that, and their method was lazily to gather a handful of
grass in one hand, hack at it languidly with the other,

98 The Coconut Planter

and stow the wisp that came away carefully in a
sack.

Billy and I stood and roared at them. Mr. Hender-
son explained later that the authorities probably didn't
want the grass cut at all, but set them to doing it for
want of another occupation — they have to keep the
prisoners employed somehow. Mr. Henderson has been
on this run some time and knows quite a lot about
things. He's always ready to enlighten us about any-
thing we find puzzling. He is rather nice for an
Englishman.

After that we passed a group of Papuan belles, as
Nev calls them. Belles, indeed ! I never saw such
ugliness in my life. They are ugly. Their legs are
sticks, and they wear such a mighty little clothing that
their bad points show up. All their attire consists of
is a necklace or two and a rami, or short skirt of dried
grass that hangs in a fringe from the hips.

But there's style in wearing even a frock of this
guise. Most of the women walk with a peculiar swing-
ing motion from the hips that sets the skirt rustling
from side to side, and gives them something the
carriage of an emu. Mr. Smith explained that that is
just swank, the more a girl can waggle the more she is
admired and sought in marriage. If you can't give a
wobbly back view you are no class.

I haven't mentioned Mr. Smith before, have I? He
is a passenger we carried from Port Moresby to here.
He is a tall, sandy-haired man, and is the Assistant
Resident Magistrate at Yule Island, and so interesting
to talk to. I think he said he has been up here nearly
thirty years, and he knows all kinds of tales about the
natives. He made us laugh one dny telling us about
his police. They are fine-looking fellows in their
uniforms — that is, a one-piece garment of navy serge
edged with scarlet braid at the neck, sleeves, and hem,

The Coconut Planter

99

and a leather belt holding a knife £ind a rifle when they
are out on business. Bare legs, of course, and no
helmets. The latter would never set on their fuzzy
mops. Still, they contrive to look impressive.

Mr. Smith said police boys usually sign on for three
years with the Government force, and at the end of that
time go back to their villages, where, as a rule, they
are appointed, officially, village constable and, un-
officially, little tin god. Every policeman is practically
an autocrat in his village. It's his duty to see all lights
are out by nine o'clock and folks in bed, and he has
to report all cases of disputes to the visiting magistrate;
He generally, unofficially, tries the cases by himself,
Mr. Smith says, before he brings them up to the white
judge, and decides according to the size of the bribe
which contestant shall have his voice.

Mr. Smith says you don't need law to settle native
troubles, but merely common sense. You must start off
with the assumption both parties are lying for all they
are worth, cross-examine them till one's evidence gets
more contradictory than the others, and award the
decision to the one whose lies seem the more coherent.
It sounded very droll the way he told us. Papua is
divided into eleven magisterial divisions; Mr. Smith
has seventy-two village constables in his, and he says
he is convinced all but the two should be in jail
themselves.

This will show how little you can trust them. Any
native found in a place where he does not belong is
promptly handcuffed and jailed, but none of the police-
men are allowed to have the keys to the handcuffs.
Once they are put on, on they must remain till the advent
of the white inspector, even if it is months before he
makes his visit.

You see, nearlv all natives who appear suddenly in
villages, where they are not known, are malefactors of

100 The Coconut Planter

some sort, most often boys running away from their
masters. All work is done on the contract system up
here, a native signs on to work for you for one, two, or
three years, as he pleases, but once he has signed the
contract the Government makes him stick to it ; if he
runs away he is put in jail, and then sent back till he
has finished the stipulated time, when he is free to
return to his village.

Everyone up here tells how lazy they are, and that
they would never stay their time out if they were not
made to, but what I haven't succeeded in fathoming is
why they agree to work at all. They don't need much
to keep them alive; they certainly don't have any
expense for clothes, and they live on pig and coconut,
both of which grow wild. I believe the village council
every now and then picks out a few boys and sends
them in to get money to buy tobacco and rice and
luxuries, or else a man's father-in-law shoos him off
because he has to give him all he earns, or even the
recruiters' persuasion works on the boys themselves.
They want to come in and learn about the white people
and their ways. Indeed, it gives a boy a certain
prestige, when he goes back, over his uncultivated
brethren.

But you have always to get your boys from islands
some hundred miles away from where you mean them to
work. Otherwise, if they want to run away it's too easy
for them. That's the idea of jailing every strange
native on suspicion ; and they won't give the police the
keys because, sometimes, if it's a long interval before
the white magistrate comes, the runaway makes friends
with his captors and, if they could, they would take the
handcuffs off and let him go again.

I made Mr. Smith talk all I could. If this is going
to be my home for the next dozen years — and I guess I
must make up my mind to that — I want to learn all I

The Coconut Planter loi

can about it and its ways. Mr. Smith has one poHce-
boy of whom he is immensely proud ; his name is Sefa,
and he has been with the Government twenty-five years,
but that, of course, is unusual.

He speaks English as well as I do, and Mr. Smith
says he is as reliable and trustworthy as a white man.
In fact, he says he doesn't know what he would do
without him. He takes a holiday every now and then
and goes to his village to see his wife and family, but
he has never actually left the service since he first signed
on. He wears stripes and is a sergeant, and very proud
indeed of himself.

There go Bee and Adelaide — off to the post office, I
suppose, like the rest of us. Oh, no, I remember —
Bee wants to go and buy some native money ; you can
get it at the store made up in packets. I bought five
shillingsworth just now. I want to send somej to
Cicely ; she will love it. It is quite pretty, little red
discs such as you use for ludo and games like that,
but it is real money for trading with. It's a shell, and
they get it by diving, from the underside of reefs. Some
of the boys wear five or ten shillingsworth in their ears
when they want to put on dog. Sefa wears a lot in his,
and it looks rather smart with the scarlet braid on his
gown.

Such a nice thing I've found out. Bee and Adelaide
are going to stay in Woodlark awhile, too. Of
course, they'll be in the township and I shall be
away in the bush, but it will be nice to know they
are somewhere within reach. I have grown to like
them so.

I only found out yesterday. It came out in con-
versation that Bee has literary aspirations and wants
to gather material for a book. Papua is a fairly un-
worked field, so she decided to come up here and assimi-
late local colour. They've hired a house in Kulumadau

102 The Coconut Planter

for six months through some man or another they know
slightly. I believe it's Nev's boss; anyway, the name's
the same — Carlyle.

Bee is delighted with it all so far, but, I think,
Adelaide is nervous of the prospect; she can't get used
to the natives wearing so few clothes. She's a sweet,
old-fashioned little dear.

CHAPTER XVII

There's the most wonderful amount of things to see
here. I beheve, if we stopped weeks, we'd never
exhaust them. Yesterday afternoon we went to a place
called Sariba. Most of it is a dairy farm, and it
seemed downright homelike after rubber and coconuts
and such things. These are the first cows I've seen in
Papua. There were even hens here.

But, of course, their place was perched up on the
top of a- hill, like all houses are here, and it took all
our breath to get up to it. We just planked up there
in a body and invited ourselves to afternoon tea. Nev
knew the people, and he took the rest of us. There were
nearly a dozen, but that's the delightful thing about
people up here; they don't mind how many drop in on
them without warning; they assured us they were
delighted to see us all, and they didn't only say it, they
behaved as if they were.

They gave us the nicest tea and cakes and, on top
of it all, the hugest mandarins I've ever seen in my
life, and then, because we admired some big cowries in
a box near by, they presented us with them on the
spot. You'd have thought we had done the nicest thing
in the world — inviting ourselves in like that — but they
said they just loved meeting folks from home. You
see, Australia is home to most of them, to the women
anyway. I dare say they'll never see one of us again,
but that didn't make the least difference to the
heartiness of their welcome.

It was so pretty going across to their place, too.

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104 The Coconut Planter

That is the most fascinating thing of all about Samarai
— having to go everywhere over the water in these perky-
little launches. The very going to a place, as well as
the place when you get there, is delightful. And every-
where your view is hemmed in by islands and islands.
We saw the most comical one to-day on our journey ;
it was a little round, wee one, exactly like a pudding,
and all it grew on it were three feathery palms right
on the very top like a piece of holly stuck well in.

And then, coming home, the sun melted himself over
the whole sea; we seemed to be rushing through pools
of gold, it fell away before us and poured itself on and
on in ever widening circles. When you looked ahead,
the sea was like thousands and millions of turquoises,
each set in a separate golden band. I think the man
who wrote about the sea of heaven must have seen one
like that some sunset down in Syria. None of us spoke
as we rushed through it. We couldn't I

And the flowers we saw, too 1 I think they had
every kind of hibiscus there is in the world ; they make
a hobby of them. There were the single scarlet and
crimson that grow wild everywhere, and big flaunting
double ones for all the world like a bloated fuchsia, but
also they had white ones and creamy yellow, and some
that Nev said you could only explain as the colour of a
girl's cheek.

And they had poinsettias like Japanese umbrellas.
They really were; you could have worn one for a hat;
and they were of a transparent blood redness like a
young rooster's comb. And there was another dainty
flower, that grows in clusters, all speckled with
tangerine. I have forgotten its name, but there is a
bush of it growing next door the Customs House as
you turn round it to the post office, and every time
Billy goes past the place he steals me a piece to wear.
I love it so.

The Coconut Planter 105

After we had disposed of the tea and raved over the
flowers, we strolled down to the beach and saw their
sago palms. It's hard to imagine it's the same stuff
you eat with milk; and oh I we saw one thing that
made us stop and laugh the way you laugh when you
feel tender. It was a little willie wagtail of all things
perking himself on an overturned palm as cheekily as
ever his brothers used to do at my window in Neutral
Bay.

I stopped to watch him ; it was so lovely and homey
to see him here among all the strangeness. I don't
think the others felt quite like I did about it, for, you
see, it's only a change to most of them ; they are going
back in a few weeks, but I'm coming to a new land
for — well, I suppose it will be for good, for years
and years anyway; and, sometimes, though I try to
keep up a good heart, I feel desperately lonely and
frightened.

I believe Nev guessed what I was feeling, for he was
awfully nice; he talked quite kindly and sensibly, and
didn't say a single horrid thing.

But he did in the evening; he vexed me rather; so,
to punish him, I wouldn't go for a walk with him this
morning, and this afternoon I've told Billy he may
play me tennis. They have two such nice courts up
here by the recreation ground, and some men Nev intro-
duced us to have asked us to come and play whenever
we can. We all played with them yesterday. It's
remarkable the way men seem able to get off here to
amuse themselves whenever they like; nobody seems
really to work. I suppose they do really, but every-
body has such a lazy air you wouldn't think it.

I'll show Nev if he can say what he likes to me.
Of course, I know he thinks me an unusual girl, but
even if I am, and even if I can face truths, to have a
man tell you he loves you when in the same breath he—

io6 The Coconut Planter

well, never mind, but Nev really carries frankness to
the extreme.

And he has the impertinence to think I'm in love
with him. Did you ever hear of such a thing? If it
wasn't so absurd, I would be angry. I can't quite re-
member how we got to talking of it. We'd been having
a little party up in Mr. Henderson's room, I think. The
men Billy and I had been playing tennis with in the
afternoon had asked : " Could they come down that
evening ? " They simply love meeting a new girl in
these places where everybody knows everybody else,
and, as our little saloon was crowded out and it was
too windy on deck for comfort, Mr. Henderson placed
his room at our disposal.

We had quite a jolly time, even if accommodation
was limited. I had the arm-chair, Nev sat on the table,
and the rest of us were distributed on his bunk and the
floor. Mr. Henderson played his mandoline, and I
sang little coon songs to it and ragtime, and the boys
joined in the choruses, and it was quite a jolly party.
Some of the other passengers gathered outside the open
door part of the time to listen and applaud, and passed
conversation through to us. I saw Miss Brough go by
once, and I heard afterwards she didn't think it decent
to sit up in a cabin with a bunch of men like that
Shale girl did. I wonder would she have considered it
more decent if I'd been there with only one.

After, when the wind had dropped, and it got too
hot, we went outside, and it was while Mr. Henderson
was showing the others something Nev said to me :

"What a night, Sunny. It's the kind that gets into
your blood. I feel I'd like to pick you up and run away
with you to one of these islands near. A little hidden
beach where there'd be just palms and silence and us,
not even stars."

"Most romantic ! " I mocked, the more lightly as my

The Coconut Planter

107

heart was beating a little faster. I suppose it was the
feel of the air, as Nev said. "And how long," I asked,
"before you'd leave me to enjoy the palms alone and
slide back to bridge and ham and eggs for breakfast? "

Nev surveyed me oddly, though he laughed. "Quite
a time, I think."

"You flatter me," I laughed back. "However, I've
no intention of making the experiment."

"Sure?" he said, still with a little glint in his eye.

I met the question fairly. "Quite sure," I said.
"The price is too high."

The flash died away from his eyes. "That con-
founded reasonable fourth again. You ought to be
grateful to it, Sunny, for" — he bent close to me, and
his voice had a peculiar gentleness that wasn't gentle
at all — "I believe the other three-quarters of vou would
risk it."

I laughed at him, but — I believe there is a grain of
truth in what he said, angry as it made me. A good
part of me could come under his influence, if I hadn't
enough sense to know it w^ouldn't pay. Still, it's very
conceited of him to know it, and I certainly don't love
him, and have no intention of doing so; so he needn't
worry.

That's why I demurely told him I was going w'ith
Bee and Adelaide when he suggested a stroll. I hope
he was put out. He looked it a little.

CHAPTER XVIII

To-day has been perfectly scrumptious. You know, at
times I get an uneasy feeling that enjoying myself as
much as I am doing on this journey is not exactly the
way to set about making a fortune. And make one I
will — or die in the attempt. Independence isn't merely
life to me; it's the necessary preliminary to life. Never
again will I be one of the uncounted drudges on the
world's rubbish heap.

Still, T've said that before, and I have to quiet my
conscience by reminding it that I can't get to my
destination any quicker than I am doing; and, if
pleasure offers by the way, I'd be silly to turn my back
on it, wouldn't I ? You see, this is a holiday tour for
most on board, and I catch the feeling a bit from them.
I'll work hard enough when I get to my land.

We went to see a coconut plantation to-day. So I
really combined business with my pleasure. It's an
island called Dosia, and is owned by Mr. Carrier. As
far as I can tell, he seems to own half Papua; you'd
think so to hear people talk. This island, which must
be several miles square, is only one of his properties
and by no means the largest. Of course, I was more
interested in this expedition than the rest, though I
think everybody enjoyed it. About thirty of us went,
and we made quite a picnic of it.

We left in the morning* launch, about half-past
nine, wilh the taciturn Mr. Henderson in charge of us
as usual — though I've made quite a surprising dis-
covery: he isn't always taciturn; the second mate

1 08

The Coconut Planter 109

showed me a photo snap of him with both arms wund
a pretty girl. It was taken last trip. Perhaps his
solemnity is because he misses her. It's a pretty
common mistake with women to think, because they <
don't attract a man, he isn't to be attracted. We're all
of us vain.

Mr. Carrier wasn't home when we got to his house,
winding up through the interminable rows of giant
trees that made me feel the most insignificant ant on
the face of the globe ; but his overseer came along and
told us to make ourselves at home, which we did most
thoroughly. We sat on his veranda and borrowed
fans and tidied our hair at his looking-glass, and then
the stewards we had brought with us from the boat set*
lunch in his dining-room, and we had a real hilarious
meal.

The overseer was awfully nice ; he stayed and had
lunch with us, and afterwards he sent a native to get us
some real green coconuts, so green and soft you could
eat them with a teaspoon. Oh, they are just delicious !
I never knew coconuts could be like that. And then he
got us some greener ones still that hadn't any nut
formed inside, and were full of liquid, and he poured it
in glasses, and gave it us to drink. It tasted like
lemonade and champagne together.

Coconuts, you know, don't ripen at any particular
season like ordinary behaved fruits; they keep going all
the year round, and some will be just green and form-
ing, while on a tree next door they are a ripe ancient
brown.

After lunch some of them went bathing again;
others stayed smoking on the veranda, and Billy and
Nev and I went off for a walk. We passed heaps and
heaps of coconuts waiting to be husked and split, and
in another place we came on sheet after sheet of galvan-
ised iron, raised up like a table and laden with the split

H

no The Coconut Planter

insides — the copra they call it then. It was all shrivel-
ling up and going a dirty yellow brown. It didn't
seem believable it could be related to the lovely custardy
stuff we had had for lunch.

The boys both teased me while I inspected it, and
called me the Coconut Queen, and Nev wrote out an
advertisement for my future use : *' The Sinuabada
Cynthia's Copra Cake Caps Creation," and we were all
absurd together, so much so that I suggested filling in
the afternoon with a paddle.

We did. You can't imagine how unbelievably blue
the water is against the creamy beaches. We had the
loveliest paddle even if it does sound a babyish thing
to do, and we found the most wonderful things, big
pink, spiked shells, and cowries of every size and colour
and big pieces of coral, snow white and red and
heliotrope.

And then Nev dragged us out on to a low flat bed
of rock and coral that hurt our feet frightfully, but that
was cram full of the most surprising discoveries. When
we turned over the rocks there would be all colours of
sea-anemones waving their stameny legs, or leggy
stamens, whichever it is, that wriggled backwards and
disappeared when we poked them in the middle; and
every shell we picked up had a protesting baby hermit
crab in it ; and heaps and heaps of sea-urchins were
doing a funny Catherine wheel act on their thousands of
legs. It must be awfully handy being able to walk any
old side up. Once we came on a fat black sea slug
that must have been washed in off the reef.

We chattered and laughed, and cut the soles of our
feet on the sharp coral, and I screamed once when I
trod on a baby water snake; and Billy sat down on a
rock and tried for a conscientious five minutes to catch
a tadpole that had got stranded in a very shallow pool,
and some of my hair tumbled loose and my petticoat

The Coconut Planter m

got wet at the edges, and I know I must have smelt
fishy and shelly, but I don't believe I'd ever had such
a merry day since I grew too big to build sand-castles.

Bee and Adelaide came strolling decorously by and
said it did them good to see us, we looked so dirty and
happy. They didn't say dirty, but I knew we did,
even though the boys both insisted I looked nearly as
speckless as when I started, but I know I couldn't have,
for they weren't, and I'd been doing nearly as much as
they, though a girl always does take a bit more care,
doesn't she ?

Bee and Adelaide had been doing some trade with
the inevitable few natives in the inevitable huts by the
beach where we landed. Bee was carrying a rami and
Adelaide had a bow and arrow and a spear. She looked
pretty formidable, for the arrows even are seven feet
long and the spears usually twelve. They were having
quite an argument for them when they reached us.
Adelaide, who is usually the meekest of women, was
protesting against Bee's taking the rami back to the
ship unless she first got a bottle of lysol at one of the
stores; Samarai possesses three.

She appealed to us to uphold her, and we certainly
did. I wouldn't care to have anything one of those
natives had been wearing anywhere near my clothes
even with lysol on it. But we had quite a lively argu-
ment. I quite agreed with Nev and Billy when they
called them a pair of old sports. They are dears.

But the visit was useful to me as well as a joyous
outing. Nev introduced me to Mr. Carrier, as he had
promised, and he gave me a lot of advice. At first
when we came across him he was superintending his
boys, who were planting out some fresh coconuts in
another corner of the island, and when Nev told him
about me he was inclined to be amused and treat it
as the whim of a rich society girl, which he seemed to

112 The Coconut Planter

think me. I won't say I wasn't a tiny bit pleased at
his mistake. I despise rich girls like Diana, who don't
know a thing beyond the sugar coating of life, and
yet I like to be thought one. That's funny, isn't- it?
I wonder — is my contempt half jealousy?

Anyway, when he understood I wasn't in it merely
for the good of my health, he talked quite differently
and seriously. He smiled a little when he learnt my
whole available capital was a thousand pounds, and
asked me how far I expected that to go. I was a bit
staggered, as you can guess. I thought I was a perfect
plutocrat, but after half a minute with him I began to
wish I'd put it in Treasury Bills and stayed quietly on
in Sydney. At least, not quite wish it, for he got my
fighting blood up and I'm going through with it, but
I do realise I haven't as much money as I thought,
and I'll have to be careful.

But it was good of him to explain things, wasn't it?

"You see. Miss Shale," he said, "coconuts are
certainly a paying game and far more remunerative
than the man in the street guesses. All the same, to
start a plantation, and keep it going likewise, requires
more capital than one would ever dream. Land is cheap
and labour is cheaper, but — the incidentals are what
mount up. Take your own case. You have a hundred
acres on lease, haven't you? Well, I wonder if you
have any idea what it's going to cost you to clear and
plant it. I don't want to discourage you," he added,
as my face fell, " but I want you to understand what a
hard and risky job you are taking on. Still, if I sound
too damping " He paused.

"No, go on," I said. "I might as well know
the worst." Half-unconsciously I glanced at Nev,
and his smile bucked me up a heap. "Please go on,"
I said.

"Well," said Mr. Carrier, "we'll take it your ground

The Coconut Planter 113

is all jungle. I haven't seen your particular lot, but I
know the land there; in fact, I've got some planted
myself. You've got to have the trees cut down and
the creepers cleared away. That takes time und
money."

"I know," I said with some pride; "I've figured
that out. It costs about ;^5 an acre."

"At the least," was Mr. Carrier's uncncouraging
comment. "But that's only the beginning, not the
end, of your expenses. You've not only got to clear
your land, you've got to keep it cleared; you don't
realise what tropical growth is yet. Even if you go in
for cover crops, instead of clean weeding, as I certainly
advise you to do, you'll need about twenty boys."

"But their wages are awfully small," I said eagerly.

"Ten shillings a month," Mr. Carrier observed;
"but then there are incidentals. You've to pay £t, to
;^5 a head recruiting fee, you have to give each boy a
blanket to sleep in, two or three sticks of tobacco a
week and a pannikin of rice daily, besides other food.
It mounts up. Remember, you've got to do this not
for months but for years. It takes eight years at least
before your trees bear anything worth considering.
You'd better reckon it as even longer. It probably will
be nine or ten before you get any interest on your out-
lay. Meanwhile, you've got to live there. And what
a life for a young and pretty girl ! " His tone made the
phrase quite inoffensive. "Bush and niggers and loneli-
ness— especially loneliness ; that's the worst. Have you
counted on that? Can you face it night and day? Take
my advice. Miss Shale; take yourself and your money
back to Sydney. It's no game for a woman."

I stood there for a little, staring at the smooth boles
around me. For the moment I was daunted. Then
somehow I felt Nev's eyes on my face. I wonder, was
there sympathy in them, or did I only read it into his

114 The Coconut Planter

look ? Whichever way it was, it gave me back my
courage. I hfted my chin again.

"Tell me," I said to Mr. Carrier, "can I do it on a
thousand ? "

He hesitated. " It's hard to say offhand," he answered
at length. "Perhaps — yes, maybe. With half as much
again, I'd say ' Yes ' unhesitatingly. But with care you
might make it do. Necessity is a good teacher."

"Then," I said, "I'm going through with it."

Mr. Carrier smiled and half sighed too. " It's grand
to be young," he said. "Oh, well. Miss Shale, I wish
you luck. And if I can help you any time, let me
know. My experience is at your service."

It was awfully kind of him to say that, wasn't it?
There do seem a lot of kind people in the world.

But I was surprised the way Nev took it. Just before
we got back to the boat he said suddenly to me :
"Sunny, there have been three girls in my life I'm glad
to have known and whom I shan't forget in a hurry,
and now there's a fourth. Why, Sunny, you're grit
right through. I — I admire you." And he held out
his hand, and we shook like men.

After dinner we were nonsensical again, but I'm
glad that just for a while even I could make Nev feel
that way about me. Somehow it patches up my self-
respect. I wonder why men and girls want to flirt. I
wish I didn't. I wonder does Nev really despise me a
teeny bit because I let him kiss me. He says he
doesn't, that he hates icy women and wouldn't be
bothered with me at all if I didn't let him, and that he
thinks a heap of me and I'm a dear and he does respect
me. But men don't always tell the truth to girls when
they want anything, do they?

I do wish I knew. I do want him to think well of
me and like me. Oh dear, life is puzzling for a girl.
And I'm sure, if I stopped now, he'd talk to

The Coconut Planter 115

Miss Brough or one of the other girls, and drop me
entirely.

Perhaps, if I'd never let him from the beginning —
but I don't know; I believe he wouldn't have bothered
with me at all, as he says, and — yes, it may be low
and disgusting, but I do like him kissing me. I'll be
honest with myself even if I can't afford to be with
anyone else. I do like it.

CHAPTER XIX

Nev is Terry's cousin.

Isn't it strange and upsetting? I don't quite know
how I do feel about it; it's so recently I found out, I've
scarcely had time — indeed, it was only to-night. The
people of Samarai gave a dance for us in their little
hall; wasn't it nice of them? But it seems every one
up this way is kind to visitors. It was the joUiest little
dance, even if my face did get like a tomato the first
waltz and stay that colour for the rest of the evening.

It was very hot, although it is their winter ; but, as
far as I could tell, the only difference winter makes is
that the men put on their linen coats; in summer they
merely appear in soft shirts.

It was a quaint dance all round. They didn't have
paid music — I suppose you couldn't get it if you tried;
they have regular people, though, who are good-natured
enough to play most of the evening in turns, and they
can play, too, some of them. One of the men off our
boat played several waltzes for them. He plays beauti-
fully. And they didn't have programmes; you just
collect a partner for each dance as you want her. It
seemed so funny at first; Diana was frightfully amused,
but even she condescended to say it was rather new and
delightful.

Another novelty was singing. Two or three times,
to give every one a chance to recover, someone would
go into the hall and sing a song while we sat about out-
side cooling. Diana seemed to think this the biggest
joke of all — singing at a dance. I liked it.

ii6

The Coconut Planter 117

But the newest thing of all was our audience. Every
window was a frame for a mass of dark faces smiling
widely. I suppose our way of amusing ourselves seems
as mad to the natives as theirs does to us. When they
feel happy they sit round in a circle and beat drums.
Their drums are long narrow things shaped like a
diabolo, closed one end with wood and the other covered
with iguana skin. The sound is the most melancholy
and monotonous you could hear.

But they seem to love it. One night at Port
Moresby there were a dozen or more of them sitting
round a bit of fire, though it was a hot night, tum-
tumming away from sundown till nine o'clock, when
they had to go to bed. The noise sounded really eerie,
drifting across the water to us.

Anyway, I enjoyed the dance immensely. I was
introduced to a lot of nice men. Men up in these parts
are mostly either very nice or much the reverse. It
seems to develop strength in them one way or the other.
And both kinds (if I met any who were not nice) could
dance, so there's no more to be said, is there ?

I had some good one-steps with Nev, too. He dances
rather nicely. But oh ! it was hot work. I never drank
so much in my life. They had a table of soft drinks
just outside the back door on the beach, and I'm quite
sure I had one after every dance ; and the hotel was
just opposite the front door ; so everyone's taste was
provided for.

After a while I got so hot I felt I simply must rest
a bit, so Nev carried me off to the beach to cool down.
The back door, you see, opens right on it, so we slipped
away from the lights and sat upon it. It was pleasant
there with the dim music behind us and the shadows
of the islands before and the lights of the Morinda
at the grrial) wharf, quivering across almost to our
feet,

ii8 The Coconut Planter

Nev was rather quiet for him. He poured little
driblets of sand absently over his fingers.

"When you think," he said at length, "that this
island we are on is only an inkspot on the map, and
that it and others round it could be put in a corner of
Papua and not found, it seems a pretty hopeless place in
which to start looking for a man, doesn't it?"

"Looking for a man," I echoed surprisedly ; "why,
who are you looking for?"

Nev stared at the moving lights along the Morinda's
side a little before he answered, and then he said, " His
name's Terry Rossiter."

"But — but he's dead," I stammered, amazed at hear-
ing his name spoken by Nev of all people in the world.
"Don't you know he's dead?"

"No," said Nev, "and neither does anyone else.
They only think he is."

I couldn't answer. I simply sat and stared at him.
Everything inside me seemed to be whirling. Up to
that minute it had never occurred to me there could
possibly have been a mistake, but Nev went on as if
he hadn't noticed my silence.

"It's only circumstantial evidence they have to go
on. All we know is that he went with an expedition
up the Fly River, that he went into the bush some way
from the camp one morning by himself and was never
seen again. It was presumed he was dead," Nev went
on, as if he were arguing with himself, "but it hasn't
been proved yet, and I for one don't believe he is, and
if he's alive I'm going to find him. And I believe he
is alive."

I was so startled that, not knowing what I did, I
caught his arm. "Alive! " I stuttered. "Terry alive!
But he can't be, Nev; he can't be." And, even as I
spoke, I realised what a fool I was to have given myself
away like that.

The Coconut Planter 119

Nev didn't start, but I felt his arm stiffen before I
dropped it. Still, there was quite a little silence before
he said :

"So — he's Terry to you, too, is he?"

I didn't answer. I could have bitten my tongue out
for my slip. Why do I never stop to think? After
another small pause, Nev w^ent on :

"Funny it should never have occurred to me you
might have known him."

Still I didn't say anything; I thought I had
blundered enough for one evening. And then Nev
turned on me with sudden imperiousness.

"What's Terry to you?" he demanded.

"What is he to you if it comes to that?" I re-
torted, plucking up a little spirit.

"He's my cousin," said Nev, "and, more than that,
my pal. Well?"

I was as quiet as he. "I do not see," I replied,
"that either friendship or relationship justifies you in
being inquisitive."

But you can't crush Nev. He wasn't listening; he
w-as staring at me as if I were a problem in algebra he
was trying to solve, and, as I stopped speaking, he
gave a half whistle.

"Got it," he said. "I've wondered ever since I
came on board why your face was vaguely familiar.
Terry had a photo of you, didn't he? I saw it when I
met him last in Port Moresby. Good Lord I " he
whistled again softly, "so you're that girl! "

"How is it you noticed mine particularly among the
rest?" I asked, endeavouring to be light, but Nev's
disconcerting gravity never wavered.

"There weren't any rest that time," he answered.
"That's why. I quizzed Terry about it. And it was
you," he repeated w^th a kind of low thoughtfulness.

"What did Terry say?" I asked, letting the sand

120 The Coconut Planter

play through my fingers in my turn. I couldn't help
asking.

"He told me there would never be any others again,"
Nev answered.

"Which statement, knowing Terry, you begged
leave to doubt." I knew to be flippant was my only
safety.

"At the time I did," Nev replied. "I suppose you
were engaged to him ? "

I shrugged my shoulders. "You should have been
a lawyer, your talents are wasted."

"Were you?" Nev persisted.

"What did Terry tell you?" I hedged.

"Nothing," said Nev, "or I should not be asking
you."

I took a deep breath. "Well," I said, with the
courage of the gambler, "suppose we were?"

Nev didn't answer at once, and we listened to the
snatches of "Trop Moutarde " that floated out to us.
A glass fell and broke; you would never have thought
the sound would carrv so.

"Do you love him still?" said Nev.

I looked out to sea ; somehow I couldn't realise how
impertinent he was be^ng, the whole thing was so
strange and unreal — sitting there with the soft sickly
scent of the frangipanis warring with the odour of the
sea. And he was Terry's cousin, my husband's cousin.

" Do you love him ? " Nev repeated with quiet in-
sistence that somehow scattered my wits and made me
blurt out the naked truth.

"I — I don't know," I stammered. "I don't think I

do. I've been trying to forget, since he's dead and "

"He's not dead," said Nev. "I'll bring him back
to you."

"But I don't want him," I cried passionately; "I
don't want him. I " I stopped abruptly as I saw

The Coconut Planter 121

a light leap into Nev's eyes, a queer fliclier of — was
it triumph ? I pulled myself together. " Please take
me back to the hall," I said formally. "I am afraid
they will be wondering what has become of us."

We picked our way back over the broken fans of
coral in silence : only, as he relinquished me to my
next partner, he said quietly :

"He is not dead."

I've lain awake all night thinking about it. I can't
believe it. It's stunning almost. He is Terry's cousin
and Terry is alive, and I am not a widow but still just

an unwanted wife. Oh, it can't be true, and yet

Nev would not say a thing like that, thinking what he
does about us, unless he were sure and — I suppose I
ought to be glad. I suppose I am really, and yet

Oh dear, I don't understand what is the matter with
me. Oh, what a wicked, heartless girl I must be not to
be glad he is alive, but — he hurt me so, and I thought
I was free and he can't care now.

Oh, dear God, what shall I do ?

But, perhaps, Nev is wrong. I think I almost hope
he is. How can I? I must be a devil. God forgive
me for being so wicked, and help me to hope Terry is
not dead.

But I can't. I just can't.

CHAPTER XX

We talked about it again to-day, though Nev wasn't
quite as blunt in his questions as last night. He worked
up to it gradually by talking of the Rossiters. It seems
strange, as he says, that we should both of us know
them so well and yet all this time have never found
out that each other was acquainted with them. I expect
it's because, as I said at the beginning, he is not
inquisitive.

He did ask me point blank if they knew about me
and Terry, and I said " No," and wriggled uncomfort-
ably. In one way I hate Nev speaking about it, it
makes me feel so deceitful. You see, he thinks Terry
only promised to marry me; he doesn't dream he
actually did it. I'm not telling any lies; I don't have
to, but letting him go on thinking that is really lying,
isn't it? But I can't tell him the truth. After all, he
is a Rossiter, too ; I mean, he is a relation and, if
Terry wouldn't acknowledge me to his people while he
lived, I'm not going to thrust myself on them now that
he's dead. No — I can't tell Nev, but I wish I could
stop feeling mean.

In another way I like him to talk about them.
Somehow it seemed to make us better friends than
before. It was so strange, too, to hear him speaking
of Terry and himself when they were little boys and
of the mischief they used to get into. It even made
Terry more real to me — to hear things like that about
him.

The only thing that puzzled me at first was I

The Coconut Planter 123

couldn't help wondering how was it, if he had grown
up with Terry like that, I'd never heard his name men-
tioned. You'd have thought Terry would have spoken
about him, but when I suggested my wonder Nev only
laughed.

"Perhaps you don't recognise me under an alias,"
he said. "I guess he must have mentioned Impy once
or twice."

And at that I really jumped. "Impy!" I said.
"You! You are Impy?"

"Sure," Nev nodded. "All my folks used to call me
that. It's long for Imp. I was a little beast when I
was young from all I can remember, and the name
stuck. So you've heard of me, eh?"

"Heard of you," I echoed, looking at him with new
eyes. "I used to get perfectly jealous at times the way
Terry talked about you. I should think I had."

"Dear old chap," said Nev softly. "We've always
been pals."

"And you're Impy?" I repeated. "How awfully
queer. Why, I thought I'd only just met you, and
now^, you see, I've known you for years and years."

"What I missed," said Nev, "in the acquaintance
being one-sided ! "

"Cicely used to talk about you, too," I said, "long
before I met either of you. I used to think, from her
description, two demi-gods must have somehow got left
behind in the migration from Olympus. She worshipped
you both."

"Oh, Terry was her chief idol," said Nev, laughing;
"but I believe I did have one of the side altars. She's a
bonnie little kid, isn't she?"

"She's a darling," I said, and then we felt as if we
knew each other better than ever. "When Terry
died " I stopped abruptly.

"She must have been awfully cut up," said Nev.

124 The Coconut Planter

"She still was when I was down in Sydney the other
week. You can't help loving her, can you? I don't
take much stock in relations : I think they're mostly
the kind of thing that improve with keeping — their
distance. But I always got on with Uncle Andrew and
Terry and Cis. We used to take her boating and bath-
ing with us and even fishing. She wasn't a bit the sort
of kid that becomes a nuisance, as long as she was with
Terry she was happy anywhere."

"And with you," I said, and Nev smiled at me the
way you do when you love something together.

I watched the sea till my eyes swam. The sun
glittered on it like on a tin plate. "Nev," I said, "I
can't realise you're Impy."

"Not up to description, eh?" said Nev, with a real
boy grin.

"Well," I said, "of course you had to grow up."

"Your tone," said Nev, "implies that it was a pity."

"Oh," I said hastily, "I don't mean to be rude,
but it's always a bit disconcerting — isn't it? — to meet
heroes in the flesh, and you were almost a legend to
me. The stories I've heard about you ! The one I
liked best was when you pushed Terry aside that day in
Gippsland when the snake was going to bite him and
took it yourself. I've often thought I'd like to meet
that little boy."

"Oh, shoo," said Nev, "Terry oughtn't to have told
you rot like that. He did as much for me at different
times, and the snake wasn't poisonous anyway."

"But you didn't know that at the time," I said.

I watched the sea again. "Nev," I said at length,
"I think I wish you weren't Impy."

"Why?" said Nev.

"I can't explain," I said restlessly. "You wouldn't
understand." And, indeed, I didn't quite understand
myself the feeling that came over me to know this

The Coconut Planter 125

stranger with whom I had flirted and coquetted, think-
ing he was just a passing ripple on the surface of my
Hfe, had been mixed up in its deepest depths for years
and years. It was enough to disconcert anyone, wasn't
it? But, of course, I couldn't explain that to him.
It's — it's like a ghost walking," I said at last, in answer
to his look. "1 wish I hadn't found out."

Nev watched me with a small ruffle between his eye-
brows. "I think I'm jealous of you," he remarked at
last. "You're the only thing Terry ever hid from me.
We never had a secret from each other before ; and I
saw him at Port Moresby only two months before he
disappeared and he didn't tell me then — even when I
saw your photo. I — wonder — why?" His voice was
slow and thoughtful.

"Tell me," I said quickly, "have you any kind of
proof at all that Terry is not dead — proof that would
convince anyone besides you?"

But Nev did not seem to hear; he was still gazing
at me with that slow, brooding look. "I can only think
of one reason he would not have told me," he said.

For a moment I did not follow his thought, and,
when I did, I went, for the first time in my life, a dark,
painful crimson, and angry tears rushed to my eyes.

"Oh," I cried bitterly, "I suppose I have given you
the right to think such a thing." And I rose and walked
quickly to the rail. I couldn't keep back the tears, and
I didn't want him to see he could make me cry.

But in a second he was beside me. "Sunny, you
know I didn't believe that," he said, more earnestly than
I had ever heard him speak before. "Good Lord I do
you think I don't know a straight woman when I see
her? Don't be a goose."

"Well, why did you — you hint it?" I said, my
breath still catching a little.

"I don't know," Nev answered slowly. "I think I
1

126 The Coconut Planter

was thinking aloud, and it couldn't have been that —
with the kind of girl you are; and yet — it wasn't like
Terry to keep it from me. He's told me about his
engagements always before, and they've been secret,
too."

" Before ! " I repeated.

"Oh ! " said Nev, a little taken aback by my surprise.
But I recovered in a minute.

"Go on," I said, "you had better tell me. I have a
right to know. And it doesn't matter now, anyway."

"Oh, well," said Nev hesitatingly, "I don't think
they were ever very serious, you know. Terry was the
dearest chap, but he could never keep his head with
women. He was always mad on the one till the next
came along," Nev went on, as if forgetting me, and
then, caught back by my expression, he added lamely :
"The last he told me about was a girl in Honolulu.
He was engaged to her when he got back to Sydney
last."

"That was when I met him," I said quietly.

Nev was silent.

"I wonder," I said, "what she felt when his letters
began to grow irregular ? "

"Why, Sunny," said Nev, "how dare you? Of
course Terry told her at once."

"I wonder," I said, and laughed.

"Don't laugh like that," Nev said sharply.
"Sunny" — a note of jealousy crept into his voice — "do
you care as much as that still ? "

" Care," I repeated. " I Oh, Nev, do go away

for a bit. I Don't bother me, my head aches.

Won't you, please — go ! "

I didn't think he would, but he did. And then I
shut my eyes and tried to work it all out, but somehow
I felt all stupid and numbed. So Terry was always mad
on some girl, was he? I was just one of a crowd. I

The Coconut Planter 127

wonder how much I made that girl in Honolulu
suffer, and who would have supplanted me, had Terry
lived.

Oh, I know I'm wicked to think things like that
about him, but you can't guess how it smarts still. I
gave him my whole heart, and day by day it's being
driven home to me how small a thing in comparison I
was to him. It's enough to hurt, isn't it?

And then Billy came along. I think Nev must have
sent him. He said he had come to cure my headache.
He brought me smelling salts and dragged my chair to
a shady corner under the bridge, where I was secure
from observation, and then he sat beside me, every now
and again drawing his fingers across my forehead as I
lay with closed eyes, to take out the hurt, he explained.

It did, too. Perhaps it's magnetism or something,
but some people's touch is healing, isn't it? I think
Billy should have been a doctor, not an engineer. His
very presence is comforting ; he seems so strong and
quiet although he is only a boy. And after a little I
opened my eyes and smiled gratefully at him.

"Thank you, Billy," I said; "it's nearly gone now>
your hand is like a vacuum cleaner drawing out all the
hurt. I shall always send for you when I feel cross
and nasty."

Billy smiled. "You're never nasty," he said; "you
couldn't be."

Perhaps it was his smile made me ashamed. "Billy,"
I said on an impulse, "I wish you wouldn't believe in
me like that. I'm not a bit good really. You don't
know."

Billy smiled his sober little smile again. "Yes, I
do," he said. "If you weren't good, I couldn't feel
about you as I do."

"What a darling you are, Billy," I Viid, my bitter-
ness all seeming to evaporate in his faith in me. "If,"

128 The Coconut Planter

I smiled demurely, "if you were only a few years
younger, boy, I'd kiss you for that."

"Can't you," said Billy, and the faintest flush crept
up his brown cheek, "pretend I am?"

The flush made him look such a dear I nearly did,
but because of it I didn't. I laughed and gave the
ministering hand a little squeeze.

"When you find the one and only, Billy," I said,
"send her to me and I'll convince her she's the luckiest
girl in the world."

"Thank you," said Billy without enthusiasm. His
fingers pursued their easy glide across my forehead.
Once he stopped to brush a little curl out of the way,
and then he spoke again.

"I should guess it must be about heaven, though,"
he said.

I made a little questioning sound. His steady
touch had made me so drowsy I didn't know to what
he was referring.

"Kissing and — and things like that," said Billy, his
fingers moving steadily, "when it's the right girl."

"Billy," I said in mock reproach, "and me thinking
all this time you were a good little boy 1 "

"I've never kissed a girl in my life," Billy said
defiantly, his flush growing darker, "but you don't
have to have done a thing of that sort to be able to
guess what it would be like."

I shut my eyes and had a rapid little seance with
my conscience. I find Billy's company so comforting
when I have what he calls the pip that I'm afraid lately
I've been forgetting Nev's warning. It's so easy to be
selfish.

I glanced at him under my lids. He sat staring out
to sea, short and sturdy and reliable and oh — so very
young. A sudden rush of real love for him came over
me, and, because of it, I spoke cruelly.

The Coconut Planter 129

"There, Billy," I said, "that will do, thanks ever
so. Run away now ; if anyone w^re to come
along they'd think I was teaching you to flirt, even if
you are only a little boy."

Billy gave me one hurt look and went — without a
word. He hates me to remind him of my two years*
seniority, at least in that tone of voice. It's the way I
ought to treat him, and yet I felt horribly mean for ages
after he went, although my conscience says it's meaner
to let him like me too much.

I wish I hadn't got a conscience. Life's pleasanter
without.

CHAPTER XXI

It's the loveliest day, and we'll be in Woodlark
to-morrow. I shall feel quite sorry to leave the dear
old Morinda; she's a pet of a boat, and I've got the
softest spot for her tucked away in a corner of my
heart. It has been a dear trip, and I shall remember
it all my life.

Nev and I have been spending the morning sitting
right up in the bows watching the spray dash up under
her. She reminds me of a snorting old cabhorse blow-
ing great breaths away either side of her on a frosty
morning, and w-henever she burrows her nose in the
waves you get a most glorious see-saw dip. We could
hardly keep our footing; she kept throwing us against
each other till we decided the only safe place was flat
on the deck. So we sat down and told each other
naughty stories. At least, Nev's were rather naughty;
he tried to make me tell him some but, of course, I
wouldn't.

"You needn't pretend you don't know any," he
said; "girls know all the yarns that get about, only
they won't let on that they do; they're awful hypo-
crites. Go on. Sunny — tell me something really
wicked; I want to laugh."

"Shan't," I said. "Likewise can't. I haven't any
married friends, and that's the only way we learn them.
Men tell their wives, with strict instructions not to
repeat it, and, of course, next day they tell their girl
friends and so it gets round."

"Moral," said Nev, "a man wants to be careful

130

The Coconut Planter 131

these days what he tells his wife if he wants to
face her friends without a blush. Thanks for the
tip."

"Why is it likely to be useful to you in the near
future?" I laughed.

"Who knows?" said Nev. "The fate of every man
is bound about his neck, you told me. I'm watching
mine unravel."

We talked nonsense like that all the morning, but
we enjoyed it awfully. I believe he did it to make me
feel at ease after what he said yesterday. He hasn't
said another word about Terry since, but I almost wish
he would. I can feel he's thinking about it still. I
wonder, can he be right ? He seems awfully positive,
doesn't he?

And I've gathered from Billy that that was the
reason he has been down to Sydney. He was up at
Kulumadau on his mine when the thing was reported,
and, though he didn't believe it, it needs a bit of
money to take a search party into the interior as he
intends doing, so he went down to see Terry's people
and enlist their belief. Evideatly he's convinced them,
and he's going straight ahead.

I asked Billy how he could leave the mine. He ex-
plained that Nev is a great friend of the manager, and
they've fixed it up somehow. It won't be a particularly
busy time presently ; and that's partly the reason
they've brought Billy up — to take Nev's place while
he's away; though, if he makes good, they'll probably
keep him on, and he says he's going to do that all
right. He will, too; you can see it in his face. Besides,
Nev knows men when he sees them, and he picked
Billy.

Billy thinks the world of Nev. It's funny to hear
him admired from a man's point of view; it's so dif-
ferent from a girl's. His Nev is almost another person

132 The Coconut Planter

from mine and quite different again from Impy. It's
strange how we can be so many kinds of selves at once,
isn't it?

I had a long talk with Billy after lunch to-day
while Nev was playing quoits with another man. I
wish I had a brother like him, instead of being a lone
orphan. I'm sure I'd have been a nicer girl. He has
a sister he tells me about, and he seems to think she's
such a fine, pretty, good girl that I feel positively
envious and mean every now and again when he speaks
of her.

We were very practical and sensible to-day. I let
Billy do most of the talking. He was explaining
engines to me. Our talk was learned all the time
except once when he stopped to say my hair reminded
him of electricity — it threw out such wicked blue
flames. But the rest of the time we were sternly
sensible according to my resolution. I wouldn't
even let girls be mentioned. Perhaps it was only
another way of coquetting with him, for, after
all, the thing Billy admires most about me is
my sense.

"Sense" is the only word he could think of to
describe the quality he admired, although he said sense
didn't quite fit it. But he loved to listen to me talk-
ing; he'd never before met a woman who could talk —
talk as if she were another man. I laughed at the
very masculine praise, but I couldn't help being
pleased, his admiration is so fresh and unspoiled
and so very young. How his mother must adore
him !

Sometimes it makes me feel quite sorrowful to think
that one day a girl will make him love her and revolu-
tionise all his ideas about us — at least she will if she's
not a nice girl, because the kind of girl a man first
really cares for fixes his idea of women more than his

The Coconut Planter 133

mother and sisters and all he's known up to then,
don't you think? And Billy hasn't been in love yet,
not properly, although he has liked several girls pretty
well, and I gather — all this by skilful cross-examina-
tion— that one or two have taken rather violent fancies
to Billy. But he has been too interested in his work
to bother about them very much, which is quite right
and proper. I applauded him for it.

"Keep it up, Billy," I said. "Women aren't a bit
of good to you for years and years yet. If a man has
any pet ambition and w-ants to get anywhere he must
cut girls out till he's done it, for a girl is an aim and
an occupation in herself; there's mighty few of us can
help a man on. Often, the more we love him, the
more we hinder, for we love jealously and resent him
putting his work before us, as every man must do at
times who has an aim beyond merely earning bread
and butter."

Billy sat and looked at me in his sober little way.
"Gee," he said at last, "how can you say all that ? I've
thought a bit like that but I couldn't say it that way.

You see " He hesitated, but I didn't help him out,

and for a bit we watched the line of grey over the
horizon where the clouds were foregathering; I never
try to get a confidence. But after the minute's break
Billy's came out with a rush.

"You see," he said, "I can't get married for five or
six years at least. I'm not old enough, and, what's
more, I'm not likely to have a good enough position
till about then to offer a girl, so — I just won't think
about her that way."

"What a wise kid it is," I said, and gave his hand
a tiny pat.

Billy went on a trifle regretfully. "But it's rotten
luck. Suppose — well, suppose you meet a girl you
know you could like heaps — now."

134 The Coconut Planter

"Well, you could ask her to wait for you," I said.
"If she loves you, she will."

"Oh, but," said Billy decidedly, "I don't believe in
that. I'd want her right away and — you see in six
years' time I mightn't be as far on as I think I will
now, and she might have to wait longer. And then
perhaps she'd change or I might."

"You horribly practical little wretch," I said,
laughing.

But Billy's gaze was still regretful. "It is tough,"
he said. "I wonder why you meet the right people at
the wrong time."

For a minute I wondered if my vanity had led me
astray. I hastily ran over in my mind all the girls on
board. I hadn't seen him speaking to any of them
particularly. " But, Billy," I said, "you don't mean
you like a girl now, do you ? "

"Haven't I told you it's no use liking her?" Billy
replied. "But, gee, I wish I were five years older.
Why haven't you married yet ? " He shot the question
at me so suddenly that I was disconcerted for a moment.
It came upon me that, even with this dear youngster
who thought me so honest, I was acting a lie. I felt
so horrid I tried to fence off his question.

"Perhaps no one's ever wanted me, Billy," I said.

"Gee," he said with a queer little intake of his
breath, "any man that doesn't want to marry you must
be a mug."

For a minute I hardly knew what to answer. I had
never dreamt Billy had got as far as that ; it makes me
feel horribly responsible ; I must try to be extra good,
because, if he lost his respect for me, it would, maybe,
spoil his opinion of women for years. I almost wish
he didn't admire me so much. A boy's love is a tender
and delicious thing, but it is a great responsibility.
There, I must stop and laugh. Billy certainly would

The Coconut Planter 135

if he could hear me talking about him like this; he
thinks he is perfectly capable of looking after himself,
and I'm not sure that he isn't, too. That is one of the
charming things about him — his quiet, sober con-
fidence in himself. And it's because he's got such an
amazing fund of common sense himself, I think, that he
can appreciate mine.

CHAPTER XXII

Oh, dear, I wish I knew what to beheve about Terry.
It's making it dreadfully awkward with Nev, because,
you see, I have to behave with him now, and he doesn't
like it and I can't explain. I thought I was a girl
again and free to do as I pleased, but, if Terry is
alive, I'm his wife still, whether he wants me or not,
and I can't let another man kiss me, can I ?

If I were sure he is alive, I think I would tell Nev
the truth, but I can't believe it. I've heard it said
that when people who are very near to you are alive
you feel they are, and I don't a bit about Terry. I
am sure Nev must be wrong. Surely, if they were
keeping him a prisoner for any reason, he'd have been
able to escape or send some kind of a message through
by now.

And I don't want to tell Nev if there's no need to;
it would spoil things. I mean, of course, we have
become such friends and I do like him awfully, and,
perhaps, if I told him now he might think I was a
deceitful kind of girl and wouldn't speak to me ever
again. And I should hate that. I don't want Nev to .
think badly of me.

But I don't know that he'll ever be friends with me
again even as it is. He was so hurt and angry when I
wouldn't let him kiss me last night. At least, I tried
not to let him, but I couldn't stop him at first. He
is so frightfully strong, and he wouldn't believe I was
in earnest and not merely tantalising him. It wasn't
till I cried that he let me go, and then he was fright-

The Coconut Planter 137

fully huffed. He took away his arm so roughly I nearly
fell, and said :

"Pardon my egotism; it hadn't occurred to me I
might have grown distasteful to you."

"Oh, Nev, it isn't that at all," I protested, the tears
starting again; but Nev wasn't a bit melted. I expect
he has made women cry before.

"Indeed," he sneered. "To what else do you expect
me to ascribe it ? A sudden conversion ? I have always
considered them improbable and, pardon me, a little
theatrical. However, it's not worth arguing about."

"Oh, Nev," I said, "I do think you might be nicer

about it. I have got a reason for — for stopping

Really I have."

"Maybe," said Nev, "but I haven't. Give me half
yours."

"I can't," I said awkwardly. "At least, it isn't any
very special reason exactly. I — I just don't want to."

"My own explanation," said Nev, "which just now
you rejected."

I sat there feeling simply wretched; I couldn't think
of another thing to say. After a few more minutes of
silence Nev looked at his watch.

"Quarter past eight," he said. "I think I'll go
down and join in the poker below\ I don't suppose,
under the circumstances, and as neither of us seems in
an agreeable mood, you want me to stay, do you ?
Shall I take you down to the saloon ? "

My lips felt trembly, but I nodded and went. I
wasn't going to let him see how much I minded his
coldness.

And he hasn't spoken since. And he'll be leaving
the boat in a minute. He hasn't taken the slightest
notice of me beyond a polite good morning. No one
would notice anything was wrong, as he has been very
busy fixing up his baggage and talking to some Wood-

138 The Coconut Planter

lark men who came on board about half an hour ago.
But f'l can feel the freeze about him .whenever he
passes me, and I do think he needn't be so nasty, for
I do like him ever so, and I hate having to be icebergy
myself. I suppose I've wounded his pride, and that
makes a man very cruel indeed.

I feel sad all over that the trip is finished. It's been
BO jolly, and everyone here seems sorry to lose us. I
quite envy those who are going back in her to Sydney.
Perhaps it's the effect of the morning air, too. It's very
raw and fresh.

We are lying quite three miles out from the landing
place, and you can't see it, as there is an island in the
way. We can't go any nearer because in almost all
these island harbours the water is very shallow a long
way out from the beach. We seem to be anchored in
a big bay, and there is low-lying land all round us.
We are not near enough to see what kind of growth it
is, but it is very thick and tangled ; it looks from here
like mangroves, and now and again there seems a
lighter kind of leaf, that Billy says are a sort of lime —
siporas, I think he called them. They say, too, the
banks are alive with alligators, but I can't see any from
here.

There's a thick mist hanging over the land and
rising up in long curling strands like blue smoke.
I thought it was smoke at first from innumerable bush
fires, but they say the mist is always like that, it rains
here so much. No wonder the lowland breeds fever,
but from the deck it looks w-onderfully beautiful — the
long wraiths of fog and the leaden greyness of the sea,
which is almost oily. But it makes you feel a little
forlorn.

They are taking our luggage overside now. I think
I shall go and watch them again. Two great lighters
came alongside a little while ago, towed by a small

The Coconut Planter 139

launch and manned with dozens of dirty natives. I
can't help mentioning the dirt, it's so much in evidence;
and the skins of some look so horrid. They are not
brown at all, but have a whitey, scurfy look from some
skin disease that seems rather common among them,
and you never heard such churchy-sounding coughs. I
heard one of the men who came across in the Customs
whaleboat tell Nev that the "flue" had come up to the
island, and everyone was down with it, natives and
white.

The natives wear less clothes here than in Samarai ;
most have just a pandanuo leaf wound round them, or,
to be precise, two leaves. They are tied round the waist
on a string of plaited vine. The leaves are picked green
and marked often into some kind of design and then
dried over a fire and afterwards in the sun. This makes
them fairly pliable. But it's a scrappy costume at the
best. It's quite a relief to turn to the crew of the
whaleboat. They look really nice; they w^ear blue serge
tunics like the police, and they have the cheerfullest
smiles : only, isn't it a pity they will show you a
row of discoloured teeth instead of white ones I
wonder if betel nut is as nice as they insist. I'd like
to taste it.

It's a primitive way of landing luggage all right.
The chief officer is knotting ropes round the trunks and
cases and lowering them overside into the lighter,
where about a dozen natives seize on them and roll them
into a corner ; the rest sit on and smoke undisturbed till
they are yelled at to lend a hand too. The mails got
flung down in just the same way. Once they missed
catching, and one bag went in the water, but they are
made of stout canvas, and it didn't get hurt before it
was fished out. Another fell in the fire, but it was
rescued, too, before any damage was done. They had
quite a good-sized fire in one of the lighters. I expect

140 The Coconut Planter

they need it, for the morning air must be very dis-
couraging when you wear no clothes.

We hung over the rail for ages watching them ; it
was the quaintest sight, but we saw an even quainter —
a water snake that was all wide black and white stripes,
exactly like a football stocking. It came swimming
round the boat and one of the sailors bashed at it with
his oar, but it was quicker than he, and swam away.
It looked so comic with its fashionable stripes; we
expected one to come along in checks next, but it
didn't.

We're nearly all going ashore, even those who are
not staying, for all are curious to see the township.
Mr. Henderson says there are only a dozen or so houses
and two hotels. I expected I'd have to stay at one of
the hotels for a few days till I can get to my planta-
tion, but I don't have to after all, and I could hug
Adelaide and Bee. I am to stop with them till I have
everything ready.

I think they are angels to bother so about a girl
they hardly know. They haven't seen their house yet;
they don't know how big it will be or whether they
will find it convenient to have me or not, but I'm
invited just the same. They are the most cheerful, con-
tented pair of women I've met in my life. Invited, why
they've simply insisted. All I hope is that something
very nice will happen to them for their real kindness.

They are calling for me ; all my luggage has gone,
and now I must go, too, and make the acquaintance of
this grey, damp land where I'm going to make my
fortune.

But I do think Nev might speak to me. I wish he
had never told me about Terry ; it's all his fault, but,
of course, he doesn't know that, and I think he is very
cruel.

CHAPTER XXIII

Oh, Woodlark is queerer than any of them yet.

You should just see the hotels ! They are built of
weatherboard, with deep, wide verandas all round,
and they don't have any doors or windows — except to
the bedrooms; the dining-room has merely two huge
entrances about the width of three doors ; you feel as if
you were having your meals on the veranda.

But the things that amused me most of all were the
veranda chairs. They hold two. They are tremendous
chairs, made of canvas. Bee and I sat together in one
and had heaps of room. I don't know whether you are
supposed to sit two at a time in them, or whether they
were designed for special fat-weights.

The food is quite good, although it's pretty roughly
served, and they have heavy, old-fashioned cruets in
the middle and no butter knives. But the funniest thing
of all was being waited on by native boys — youngsters
of about fifteen they looked, perhaps not so much — with
just a scarlet towel draped round their waists. It was a
perfectly horrid sensation at first — to have their bare
oily arms brushing you as they took your dirty plates
or brought you your tea in the thickest china you could
ever imagine made. But before the meal was over I
scarcely noticed them.

You can get used to anything, can't you?

We have been over to the hotel for our meals so
far, and we stayed the first night there, too, as, although
the house was clean and ready for us, there wasn't any
food in it — or bedclothes. That is a thing Adelaide is

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142 The Coconut Planter

fussy about ; they've brought plenty of house-stuff with
them, but it's still in the cases, and hasn't come up yet
from Bonagai.

There is only a foot track up to the township, so the
natives have to carry everything up from the boats on
their shoulders or between them. If it is heavy, they
don't hurry about it, but take a whole day or more doing
the two miles. When we came up yesterday morning
we passed a group of them, sitting round a trunk and
two suitcases and other odds and ends, indulging in a
quiet smoke. None of the lot has turned up yet either,
and, as the trunk was mine, I have been feeling anxious
as to whether, perhaps, they haven't shared it up
between them.

But Mr. Carlyle assured us that there was no fear of
that ; they are perfectly to be trusted with things of that
sort; they never steal luggage or anything they are
carrying. Slow they often are, and you've got to wait
their convenience, but that it will turn up some time
or other is quite sure.

All the same, I wish they'd hurry up with my trunk,
for all I brought with me was a brush and comb and a
nightgown in a parcel. You can't carry things in this
climate ; it's too exhausting. But I feel very dirty in
the same white frock I wore yesterday, for we have been
clambering all over the place, exploring.

Nev still isn't speaking to me. We all came up
together to Kulumadau, walking single file along the
path, for there isn't room for two abreast, except here
and there ; and he kept somewhere up the line, quite
away from me. He was talking to Mr. Carlyle.

Once I slipped on a steep bit and fell before Billy,
who was behind, could grab me. I hurt my knee
badly, and I saw Nev stop in the middle of speaking
to Mr. Carlyle and start back towards me, but I wasn't
going to let him think, perhaps, I'd done it on purpose

The Coconut Planter 143

to make him speak, so I scrambled up hurriedly and
pretended it was nothing, and walked straight on
without appearing to see him.

It was quite a bad bump, for I landed on wood.
Where the ups and downs are very slippery, they let
logs of wood into the earth, making a kind of steps,
and it was on one of these that I landed, fair and
square, and with such force that, although I did not
tear my dress, I took the whole knee out of my
stocking.

But, after the first smart w'ore off, I didn't have time
to think of it or Nev or anything else; I was admiring
the scenery too hard. Every inch of the way is beauti-
ful. The hugest trees tower up on either side of the
track, the darkest, liveliest green, and they are laced
and twined together with creepers, and staghorns grow
out of them ever so high, and the undergrowth and grass
is so thick about them you wonder how this track was
ever blazed through at all. And then crimson parakeets
would shoot across the openings, and there would be
glimpses of hibiscus behind the tree-trunks. And once
we passed a dark, mysterious-looking hole that Billy
said he'd been told w'as the entrance to a cave. We
agreed we'd go and explore it one day.

It was so funny landing. We came away from the
Morinda in a launch, but even she stuck on the mud
about three hundred yards from the shore, and there
we were — the propeller, or whatever it is, churning
helplessly, and the motor chug-chugging away with the
most painstaking determination, and nothing happening
at all, except a fit of silent swearing from Mr.
Henderson.

Perhaps, if he'd had the cockatoo with him, it might
have expressed his feelings, for it startled us all one day
by breaking its frozen silence with a "Damn ! " when a
wave sent it flying off the hatch against a seat; but it

144 The Coconut Planter

has never spoken again since, and Mr. Henderson won't
believe us when we tell him the tale.

Anyway, he told us grimly it looked as if we were
there for the night, and they were trying to pole the
launch off, when we observed a canoe of three or four
natives lazily wandering around the point. We were
saved. We promptly hailed them, and they, just as
lazily, in spite of our impatience, came up and, slipping
overboard into the water, began to put their shoulders
to the launch. That's one advantage in not wearing
clothes, isn't it? There's never any trouble about un-
dressing for little emergencies of this kind.

After much effort, they got the launch off the mud
into a deeper channel, and, although Mr. Henderson was
afraid the tide was too far out for safety, with them
guiding and pushing us we managed to get alongside
the tiny landing place, and all tumbled out. It's the
smallest landing, just like a ferry, and with only one
shed, where the native policeman and his family, and
the boat boys belonging to the whaleboat Mr. Carlyle
and the others came in, sleep when they have work
to do or are too lazy to walk up to Kulumadau.

Boat boys generally live either on board or in a shed
near by, so that they are always at hand when wanted.
They do nothing else. They might be wanted any time
by someone or another, if not by their owner. That's
one of the unusual things about Papua — the way you
borrow your neighbour's property whenever you want
it. I suppose it's because everybody knows everybody
else and it's sure to be returned all right.

I noticed the custom first in Port Moresby. We
were going out in the launch one day, and we thought
we might be landing where there wouldn't be any
natives to carry us ashore, and the captain hadn't got
our dinghy — it was smashed by a wave a few days
before — so we just pranced across to the nearest yacht

The Coconut Planter 145

that had one trailing and told the natives aboard her to
hand the rope over to us and also to ship out her row-
locks and oars. We didn't know who the owner was,
but the natives are taught to obey any white man, and,
of course, we returned the boat safely again before
night.

Perhaps it's a habit they've borrowed from the
natives, for they seem regular socialists. They share
everything with each other, even a cigarette. If you
give one a cigarette (and they adore them) the man
it is given to merely takes one puff and then hands it on
to his next-door neighbour, and he to his; and it may
go the round of a dozen before coming back to the
original donee.

They much prefer European tobacco to their own.
Tobacco grows wild all over Papua, although opinions
seem to differ as to whether it is really indigenous, or
was introduced in times beyond memory. The natives
cure it very little for smoking. When they are prepar-
ing for a great feast they hang it up over smoke fires
and dry it in that way, but for ordinary use a man
generally picks a green leaf from the shrub, bruises it,
throws it on the coals till it is dry, then shreds it and
smokes it in a bamboo pipe.

These native pipes are the queerest things, and all
the men up here say they are very hard to smoke unless
you have heaps of practice. They are two feet or more
long, and the bamboo is about two inches in diameter
as a rule, carved or done in a kind of poker-work by
the women. You can buy any amount for a shilling
each. They are closed up one end and have a tiny hole
near the other just big enough to hold a cigarette or a
native cigar.

They put one or other in the hole. One man puffs
at it and then passes the big tube round; and everyone
of the circle, down to the tiniest boy, takes a big mouth-

146 The Coconut Planter

ful of pure smoke from the open end. And they don't
choke or cough one bit. Billy said it made him feel
like coughing just to watch them.

He and Nev have been almost invisible since they
arrived ; they seem to live down at the bottom of the
mine. I told Billy I believe they even sleep there.
However, he is coming to take me for a walk before
dinner to-night, so I'm going to forgive him. I wonder
if Nev is over his huff yet. I wish he would come, too,
but I don't suppose he will. I saw him speaking to
Miss Brough after lunch to-day; she came past the
hotel. Of course, she is going to marry his boss, and
he's got to be civil, as I said before, but I felt I hated
her for the minute. Did you ever hear anything so
ridiculous?

I'll stop now and go and give Bee and Adelaide a
hand. One of the cases arrived about an hour ago,
and they are hard at work making the place habitable.
I went out and offered to help, but they sent me away.
However, maybe, they'll be feeling less energetic now,
and won't be so disdainful of help. They are dears,
aren't they? They are the kind of happenings that
convince you the world isn't all a huge mistake, even
if it does have blunders in it.

CHAPTER XXIV

KuLUMADAU is a real quaint little place. I got up early
this morning and went for an explore about it. It is
perched high up on a hill, and it's quite a breath-
straining climb from Bonagai, if you have to do it
often.

They have a standard joke here about its name ; you
learn it as soon as you arrive. One tourist who panted
up the last steep bit through the mine to the first hotel
is supposed to have said scathingly as he sat on the
veranda, mopping his face and gulping down a luke-
warm drink — you can't get ice up here: "Cool-a-man-
down indeed; more like heat a man up, I call it."

There don't seem to be very many houses— about a
dozen or two. I didn't count exactly, and they pop out
most unexpectedly among the thick foliage; and there's
a wee baby cemetery, holding about a grave and a
half, down the track, with a stile on the fence that looks
very sociable.

The township — what there is of it — lies on the top
of the hill in a fairly cleared part, but about a quarter of
a mile away there is a distinct break. There, grim and
mysterious, starts the jungle — the jungle where my
fortune lies waiting to be won.

Billy and I went across to my land yesterday. It
is five miles out of Kulumadau, maybe it's only four;
it's hard to judge distance in this country, and no one
you ask seems exactly to know; they don't bother — it's
a land of laissez-aller all right. I was pining to have a

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148 The Coconut Planter

look at my property, so, as it was Sunday and Billy's
time was his own, we went by our two selves.

I had hoped Nev would relent and invite himself to
join us, but he didn't. Billy didn't mention him
either when he came up alone, so I think he must guess
there's something wrong, but, of course, he doesn't ask
questions — of me anyway. I wonder if he has said
anything to Nev ; I expect not. Adelaide and Bee
wanted to come with us, but I wouldn't let them till w-e
had been and reconnoitred. I was afraid it might be
too much for Adelaide ; Bee is strong enough, but they
do everything in pairs.

We had the loveliest day. We started soon after
breakfast; we didn't bother with a bearer, as we had
so little to carry, just a parcel of sandwiches and cake
Bee made up for us, and a bottle of whisky and water,
very weak. We tossed up as to whether it should be
that or a thermos of tea, and the two "W's" won.

I think whisky is horrid; I'd never tasted it before
I came up here, but they've made me drink it once or
twice when I've been very tired. And it does give you
new strength for a time, doesn't it? And Billy said
I'd need it to-day to get me home.

Daikois is the name of the native village nearest my
plantation; we passed through it, and had lunch in the
resthouse. It's quite a nice resthouse, built of bamboo
and unsplit saplings, and laced together with creeper
twine. It stands up on a hillock a little way from the
village.

For half an hour I was too weary to budge ; I lay
on its floor on a pillow of leaves and bracken Billy
gathered for me, and smoked a cigarette. Yes, that's
another thing I've learnt to do up here. I guess I'm
fiiirly started on the road to ruin : Miss Conway would
think so, anyway.

The village is a new one, and they are busy making

The Coconut Planter 149

the garden. Their last one used to be much nearer
the township, but the Government shifted them about
eighteen months ago. They do every now and then,
either because they become a nuisance too near the
encroaching homes of white folk, or because the soil in
the native gardens is becoming too worked out to pro-
duce enough yams and foodstuff for them.

Billy and I walked through it before we went to look
at my land. The houses are built either side of a wide
roadway of hard red earth, and there was a raised plat-
form in the middle that I said must be where the village
orator made stump speeches, but which Billy said he
guessed was the club. We peeped into a couple of
houses, and I'm glad I wasn't born a Papuan. Dirty
is a mild term for it.

In front of each was a little pen arrangement, where
they keep the family pig and her offspring when they
aren't being nursed by the kiddies. The children play
with small piggies up there as ours do with puppies.
They are quite members of the family.

There were not many natives about the village;
they were most of them working at the garden, but
one baby I just fell in love with. It was a little girl
about ten months or so, I should say; I'm not good
at guessing babies' ages. It was the brightest little soul,
attired simply and gracefully in a necklace, and its
mother was so proud of it.

She only looked a bit of a girl herself, though some
horrid tattooing down her chin spoilt what would other-
wise have been a pleasant face — that and the nose-piece
— wooden bars through the nostrils; they look so ugly.
She let us look inside her house, when we explained
by signs we wanted to. We didn't go inside, you may
be sure.

It was rather dark, as the doors are small, and there
was no window. The houses are fairly big, but they

150 The Coconut Planter

don't contain much furniture. A twisted heap of ropes,
some wooden planks raised up sHghtly, which we took
to be beds, and a couple of red earthenware jars seemed
about all we could discover.

I turned my attention to the baby. I don't think
it had ever seen white people before, for it cried at my
face first, but after it got a bit used to me, it shrieked
with laughter every time I smiled at it. I told Billy I
didn't know whether that was more of a compliment
than its first attitude or not. But it was a merry mite,
even if it were brown, and its dear teeth, like seed pearls,
were pleasant to look at after its mother's stained red
ones. She was chewing betel all the time she talked
to us.

To say "talked" is perhaps rather an exaggeration,
for she only knew about two English words, and we
knew none of hers, but it's marvellous what you can
do in the way of sign-talking when you are really put
to it.

There is a tree growing on the way, with long scarlet
berries about the size of my thumb ; they looked most
enticing, and we asked her if they were good to eat. She
went through an elaborate pantomime to explain the
fruit itself was poisonous, but the nut inside good to
crack and eat. I gave the baby a penny as we came
away, and Billy gave its mother a couple of cigarettes.

Then we went to where the map said my land started,
and, though I wouldn't admit it to Billy, I felt a bit
sinking inside as I gazed at it; it looked such a hopeless
tangle of wilderness, nothing but masses of twisted
creepers and giant trees. It doesn't seem believable
I'll ever be able to reduce that to orderly rows like Mr.
Carrier's place.

He has been so kind. He didn't say anything at the
time to me of his intention, but I find he has written
up to his agent here, a Mr. Ferguson, to help me in

The Coconut Planter 151

anv way he can and tell me what is important to be
done first. There is a lot of kindness wandering
round the world, isn't there?

I do wish I could get my natives together and get
started, but labour isn't nearly as easy to procure as I
imagined. I thought the natives would roll in, asking
me to engage them, but it's quite the reverse. You
have to go and ask them. You have to order your boys
beforehand from men called "recruiters," who go round
to the different villages persuading them to sign on.
It's all rather bewildering, but Mr. Carfew, the magis-
trate up here, is going to fix it for me. That's another
kind person.

I'm ungrateful to Bee and Adelaide to complain at
the wait, for they do seem glad to have me, and even
everyday life is new and interesting. But I do want to
^et to work.

Billy gets quite wrath at the idea of me living alone
on my land. I won't say I feel in love with the idea
now I've seen how lonely and strange it all is, but
there's no real danger. The natives are quiet enough,
they tell me. And, anyway, I didn't come out here to
be comfortable. I came to make a fortune, and I'm not
going to give in at the start. If I don't live near by, to
keep an eye on my boys, I'm told they'll never do a
hand's turn. I can't afford to pay an overseer, and I've
simply got to get my place under weigh the first
minute possible. Mr. Carrier has made me see how
small my resources are.

I'm going to build quite a tiny house, only three
rooms; a kitchen, a bedroom and a living room. I
don't need more. I am going to have one built native
style. Mr. Ferguson advises it strongly. You build it
of saplings and roof it with matted sago palm leaves.
Of course, it's high on piles off the ground; all houses
are here — just as in Queensland.

152 The Coconut Planter

The only drawback to a native house is it rarely
lasts more than twelve months; the weevils get at your
roof and the white ants at the timber, but Mr. Ferguson
says that is, if anything, an advantage, as you can burn
it down and all the germs with it. But a house of wood
and galvanised iron, how^ever carefully you clean it,
will in time become a harbour for the germs of tropical
diseases — especially out in the bush where I shall be ; in
the towns, of course, it's different.

The house the Warrens have is delightful. It's
quite a fair size, with a wide veranda all round. I don't
know whether you call it a veranda or a balcony, but I
suppose it's a veranda since the house is only one-
storey. It contains three bedrooms, and the living
room is tremendously roomy and comfortable. Like
all places here, it has no front door, merely a huge
opening on to the veranda, like folding doors without
the fold, and the other rooms lead off from it. In a
way you might call it an extension of the veranda
carried inside.

We're to have some excitement the day after
to-morrow. Miss Brough is going to be married. She
is staying at present with the Carfews. He has a wife
and daughter, we are told, although we haven't seen
them so far. Miss Brough hasn't been able to be
married before, as there isn't a minister in the place.
Mr. Carlyle did arrange for one to be here when the
Morinda would arrive, so that they could be married as
soon as she landed, but a week ago he was sent for, to
some mission on one of the other islands, to attend
another missionary who is sick. He expected to be
back by the day after to-morrow according to a message
that came in by one of the mission boys. But you
never can tell in these parts. He mightn't turn up
at all.

Miss Brough is simply furious at the delay. I

The Coconut Planter 153

suppose it isn't nice for her, as she doesn't know the
Carfews at all; they only asked her for Mr. Carlyle's
sake — because it wouldn't be nice for her to have to
stay at the hotel alone. People here are immensely
hospitable.

Needless to say, I do not expect to be invited to the
ceremonv.

CHAPTER XXV

Well, Miss Brough is Mrs. Carlyle now and, after all,
I was asked to the wedding. I bet it wasn't because she
wanted me though. But on Monday morning as we
sat down for eleven o'clock tea — morning tea is a
recognised institution up here; everybody calls in and
has it with everybody else — our gate swung back and a
SA\'eetly pretty girl carrying a green sunshade strolled
up our steps.

"How do you do?" she said, with a smile that made
us all smile back just as nicely. "If you please, I've
got to introduce myself. I'm Dolly Carfew'; and may I
come to tea ? "

As she cuddled down in a big grass chair and
nibbled her cake, she said merrily: "I suppose you're
not much wiser as to who the intruder is, are you ? "

"Oh, yes," said Adelaide, "we met your father the
day we landed. Mr. Carlyle introduced him to us.
And he had been helpful to Cynthia."

Miss Carfew nodded. " I wondered if you'd re-
member. I wanted dad to come with me this morning,
and he promised to, but, when I went to rout him out,
he told me he couldn't come yet, and that I must wait.
This is the land of ' dohori,' or 'wait awhile,'" she
went on. "You'll find it out soon. But I told dad I'd
missed my tea at home, and I wasn't going to miss it
altogether, so I came on alone. Mother couldn't come
because she had a bad headache for one and she's
looking after Miss Brough for two."

154

The Coconut Planter 155

"She is to be married to-morrow, isn't she?"
Adelaide asked with a polite show of interest.

Miss Carfew giggled. She really does giggle, but
so prettily that you want her to go on doing it. *' If
the minister turns up," she said. "He may or mayn't.
As I said before, it's the land of ' dohori.' Miss Brough
isn't pleased at his lack of consideration for her," she
added demurely, but there was a twinkle in her eye
that made us twinkle back. We understood each other
without more words.

"Well, I mustn't stay too long chatting on a first
visit," she said, shaking the crumbs out of her lap after
a little more talk. "Oh, goodness, if I wasn't going
without telling you the chief reason of my call. We
want you to come to the wedding if it takes place ; it's
to be at our house, you know."

"How kind people are up here ! " Adelaide exclaimed
involuntarily. "What a trouble you are going to ! "

"I wouldn't mind a scrap if " Miss Carfew

began, and bit off her complaint in the middle. "Oh,
well," she ended, "we know Mr. Carlyle, and she hasn't
anybody up here to be nice to her but us. But," she
added as she descended the steps, "if I were he, I'd
marry the old aunt. Mind you come — all of you; it's
at seven o'clock, weather and the minister permitting.
You'll get a laugh out of him anyway — he's the funniest
old bird."

Adelaide gasped faintly, modern slang always takes
her breath away, but Miss Carfew proceeded serenely
unconscious of offence. "They call him Wild Wilson
because of a little story that went the rounds about him
one time."

"Tell it us," I said; I had begun to like her.

"It really came from one of the mission boys," she
said with a reminiscent giggle. "Mr. Wilson was on
the mission near Samarai then, and they wanted rain

156 The Coconut Planter

badly, for they were having an unusual dry spell. So
up at the mission they prayed for it. No need to do
that here," she added, with a grimace at the sky. "It
rains every day."

"Not every day?" we cried in horror.

"Just about," she nodded. "But to return to Mr.
Wilson, this is how I heard Yobo describe it :

"Monday, Mist' Wilson he pray alonga rain — rain
no come. Tuesday, he pray alonga rain — rain no come.
Wednesday, Mist' Wilson pray and rain — he no come.
Thursday, he pray once time more and rain still he no
come. Whaffor he no come My word. Mist' Wilson
he wild 'longa God."

I stole one glance at Adelaide's petrified counten-
ance and exploded. I couldn't help it. I lay in the
chair and rocked while she eyed me with as severe dis-
approval as she is capable of. But Miss Carfew was
already half-way down the track tumbling some dirty
little nigger mites out of her way, and the green
umbrella seeming to send an Irish chuckle back at us.
"Mind you all come," was her parting call.

"That girl," said Bee in her bustly cheerful way, as
we all stood and watched the retreating back, "is what
they nowadays call a sport; isn't she. Sunny?"

"I think so," I laughed. "It was awfully nice of
her to come and ask strangers like us to the party,
wasn't it? I suppose she didn't want us to feel left
out."

"But, Bee, that story ! " Adelaide gendy protested.

"There, Adelaide," said the tolerant Bee, "it takes
all kinds to make a world. You could see the girl
meant no harm."

"But really it was most irreverent," Adelaide urged,
a little less firmly.

"She didn't mean it that way, it was plain," said
Bee, "and it's the spirit counts, not the letter. Every

The Coconut Planter 157

land has its own customs and ways of speech. I think
she seems a nice girl. She'll be a friend for Sunny."

"I won't have time for friends when I'm miles out
in the bush," I said dolefully.

"I'm sure I don't see why not," said Bee. "Any-
way, you're not there yet."

" But I really ought to be ashamed to stop on with
you like this, Miss Bee," I protested. "I am ashamed,
too. I wish I could get my house built."

"Most ungrateful of you," Bee commented, "when
you can see how much livelier you make it for Adelaide
and me. But what on earth will I wear to their
precious wedding? I haven't any party clothes with
me. I thought we were coming up to the simple life.
Adelaide, come in and find me some clothes."

So they disappeared. That is Adelaide's province;
she mostly dresses Bee. And a time she must have of
it, for blouses and skirts, as soon as they get on Bee,
seem to be bitten with the spirit of perversity. They
gape here or sag there, and, if she does sternly hold
them together with a pin, the hooks or buttons fly off
in protest.

She gets quite plaintive about the spite clothing
seems to have against her, but, although she is always
untidy, you don't notice it as you would on another
woman ; you look again at her dear, good-natured,
twinkling face and forget everything else.

But Adelaide pinned and hooked her into perfect
respectability for the wedding. I told her she looked a
positive howler, and she .sighed with a mixture of
complacence and discontent as she squinted at herself
in the glass.

"Don't I?" she agreed. "I'm not in the least
happy, as the woman said when her boots were two sizes
too small, but I'm proud."

"Bee, do stop being absurd," Adelaide mildly re-

K

158 The Coconut Planter

monstrated. "Cynthia will think in a moment you've
never worn decent clothes before."

"If I had my way," Bee retorted, wriggling one
shoulder till the silk cracked in warning, "I never would
again. Next wedding I'm asked to, Adelaide — and I
suppose it will be Sunny's — I'm going in a rami."

"There, that will do. Come along or we shall be
late," Adelaide replied soothingly. She herself looked
like a little flower. She always does, she is so fresh
and dainty and tiny, and she always wears frocks with
flower patterns on them, which give her a precise, old-
fashioned effect, even though they are quite fashion-
able. She somehow always gives me the impression she
has on a crinoline, though, of course, she'd be horrified
if she knew I thought that.

We nearly were late for the wedding, too. Miss
Brough looked very striking, though I think it was a
bit out of place to have brought up such a very
elaborate wedding dress to a place like this. The cere-
mony took place in the Carfews' House, and the minister
turned up after all, I'm glad to state — though he cut
things pretty fine. He came round the point in a
whaleboat rowed by mission boys at about half-past
five, and he had just time to rush up from Bonagai,
have a hasty drink, change his clothes and get into the
room where the bridegroom was waiting in orthodox
style.

Mr. Carlyle looked very nice in his white suit and
very bridegroomy. I liked him rather, though I should
think he'd be pretty gay. Still, that is Miss Brough's
affair. And he seems very much in love with her. He
didn't show any signs of the farewell they'd had for
him the night before, although they had sat up till five
in the morning; but they're used to that, they tell me —
the fellows here. Every Saturday night most of the
men come into the township and play poker all through

The Coconut Planter 159

the night and drink till breakfast Sunday. Billy says
they raked him in last Saturday, but he thinks he'll
have to cut it out as his head can't stand treatment like
that.

They certainly seemed to be having a hilarious time
even at half-past ten when Billy and I went past the
hotel ; they were laughing like maniacs, and one man
was singing an insane song about a wedding. We
heard a bit as we went by. One verse ran :

One of the comfany attemfted to sing.
And. five minutes after his nose was in a sling.
Nobody hissed him or called him a mugj
But somebody hurt him with a washhand jug.

And another verse ended up that he'd never forget
the night he was married to his squint-eyed pet, or
something like that.

Aren't men common ? Really, I think they all are —
even the nicest of them. Fancy getting drunk and
laughing at stuff like that the night before you get
married. But you'd never have dreamt he had if you'd
seen him next day. He looked real nice, and the whole
thing went off without a hitch. The Carfews went to
no end of trouble over it. You'd have thought the
bride was their own daughter. They gave her the
nicest breakfast, and there was a proper bridecake,
which she had brought up from Sydney with her.

She didn't have any bridesmaids, but there were two
best men, Nev and Mr. Ferguson. They both wore the
inevitable white of this climate, so they matched her
just as well as girls.

Nev must be still huffed. He spoke to me, of course ;
he couldn't very well do otherwise, but I could tell he
didn't want to talk to me, though he seemed polite and
interested, and asked me how I w^as settling down to
the life and what I thought of my land, that Billy had

i6o The Coconut Planter

told him Vd been out to see it, and asked if I had yet
been able to arrange for the boys I wanted. Oh, he
was very polite; you couldn't have picked a flaw in his
manner ; it was as natural as could be for a mere friendly
acquaintance, but Nev and I were a little more than
acquaintances for a while. Still, if he wishes to go back
to that footing, I'm sure I shall oblige him.

I was as sweet and sugary as he. I inquired about
the mine and how he was getting on — it was a regular
competition in civility, and I won the prize, which was
chaff afterwards from Dolly Carfew on our absorption
in each other. I laughed and laughed. It shows how
appearances lead one astray. In the days Nev really
enjoyed my conversation he usen't bother to be polite.
So the change is significant.

And on top of that Adelaide ! I could have slain
her. She doesn't know anything about the break, of
course, and I suppose she thought she was being nice
to me. She's invited Nev to come and see me. As
he shook han^ with her she said prettily, "You haven't
been to see our new home yet, Mr. Close. I hope you
will come and have morning tea with us one day if
you are not too busy. Can you come to-morrow?"

I wanted to crawl under the carpet. I wondered if
Nev would think I'd put her up to it, since he won't
meet me of his own free will. But I could have hugged
and hated him for the natural way he took her invita-
tion. He half bowed over her hand— Nev has pretty
manners when he likes, and Adelaide always seems to
bring out an old-fashioned gallantry in men — as he
said :

" I should like to come immensely." If I hadn't
known better, I should have believed he meant it
myself.

Then the bride went away and changed into a white
linen travelling frock, and the whole party of us ac-

The Coconut Planter i6i

companied them half-way down to Bonagai, where they
hiid a yacht waiting to take them away for their
honeymoon.

It was a queer sight. We all had to go single file,
and every fourth person carried a lantern, for it was
pitch dark, and you couldn't see a foot either side of
the track. And all these lights bobbing about and
illuminating now the top of a native's head and now a
white face starting out of the murk, and the fireflies that
kept drifting about between us — oh, it was so strange.
And everywhere the heavy silence that broods over
these forests. It seemed almost daring to wake it with
songs and jokes and choruses as we were doing.

And then I went home and took off my finery and
cried. Did you ever hear of such a silly? I don't
quite know why I cried; perhaps it was because I never
had a honeymoon. I must have a real nasty nature.

CHAPTER XXVI

Nev came to morning tea after all.

I didn't think he would. I thought he'd send round
an excuse by his boy about eleven, but I evidently have
misjudged his attitude. He doesn't mean to avoid me,
but merely to prove to me that, after all, I was only
an incident in his life, and that he can dismiss from
his mind without the slightest trouble. His liking for
me evidently didn't go deep enough to change to dis-
like. All he feels is indifference.

I was glad then that I put in an appearance. At first,
I'd thought I'd plead a headache or go for a walk and
get back late, but I was afraid Adelaide and Bee
might wonder, and I'd hate people to guess anything
about it. So I decided to face it out; but what aggra-
vated me was that there wasn't anything to face out.
Nev came like any other visitor, and admired the house
and our flowers and chatted about the prospects of
"copy" for Bee, and the wedding the day before, and
he included me quite sweetly in his talk. I could have
shaken him. It's aggravating to screw yourself up to
face anything and then not have to face it.

And yet, you know, I don't believe he's quite as
indifferent as he seemed to be ; he was just a shade too
indifferent. If he'd been really so, he'd have tried a
little more not to be. That's a real feminine way of
arguing, isn't it? But I feel I'm right.

I was sure of it, too, when Billy said to me to-day,
later : '* You had Nev up to your place to eleven o'clock,
didn't you?" And when I answered, "Yes, why?"

1C2

The Coconut Planter 163

he only replied, "Oh, nothing," and looked as if, like
the famous parrot, he were thinking a lot.

Well, what on earth do I care whether it's real or
assumed ? What's it got to do with me ? Your
interests in future, my dear Sunny, are strictly limited
by coconuts.

I think I shall be able to start a bit sooner than I
expected. Two men who have been recruiting in the
Trobriands and around Fergusson Island are expected
to call in here in about a week as they have promised
some boys to Mr. Ferguson, and Mr. Carfew thinks
they'll be able to let me have some to start with. About
eight or a dozen would do to begin. I could take them
out to my land and start getting a house built for
myself and huts for them and a storeroom, and odd jobs
like that.

He says I ought first of all to clear a few acres and
plant them with sweet potatoes and bananas and tapioca
and such things. You see, I have to feed all my boys,
and growing a lot of your own food reduces expenses
besides keeping them in better health, and, consequently,
able to work better than if they lived on rice and meat
alone.

He says he and Mr. Ferguson will pick out my boys
for me and then Fll have to sign an agreement with
them in front of him. Every agreement for work with
natives has to be made in front of a magistrate if it is
for more than three months. Even their wages must
be paid in his presence. And I have to undertake, as
well, to return them at the end of the time at my
expense to their homes. I never knew governments
could be such grandmothers about their subjects before.

But isn't it good of Mr. Carfew to take such trouble
for me ? He is a magistrate, and that man in Sydney
was right after all when he told me if in doubt to
apply to one of them. Mr. Ferguson has been awfully

i64 The Coconut Planter

kind, too, but when I tried to thank him he laughed
and said he was merely obeying orders. I had won
Mr. Carrier's heart, and so all the coconut wisdom of
Papua was mine for the asking.

Mr. Ferguson has ordered my seed coconuts for me,
and he says when I have my land burnt off ready to
plant he will come and show me how it should be done;
successful growth depends a lot on correct planting.
He is going to Samarai in a day or two by the Matunga,
but he will be back long before I need him. We have
a boat every three weeks which brings our mail and
passengers direct from Sydney, but the Mlsima, w^hich
goes across to Thursday Island, calls in between, and,
of course, you can journey about the islands in a yacht
or a launch if you like.

His promising to show me what should be done
takes a weight off my mind. I never dreamt a planta-
tion meant so much preparation. Why, when I've got
all my boys together and set them to clearing, it will
take me goodness knows how long, and after all the
trees and vines are cut down, they have to be left about
two months to dry before we can set fire to them, and
after the first burn you have to have a second to clear
away the debris. And all this time I have to be paying
and feeding them with nothing coming in. No wonder
Mr. Carrier told me I had no idea how costly it is.

Well, one thing, it won't be expensive for me to
live out there. I can live much as the natives do, I
suppose, on bananas and vegetables and tinned meat.
Mr. Ferguson says the food of each boy ought to come
well under eight pounds a year, so it ought not to cost
me more than twice or three times that for myself,
should it? And as for clothes, I've got a lot, and I
guess up here, even if they do get a bit behind the
fashion, no one will care. There'll only be the wild
pigs to admire.

The Coconut Planter 165

You'd laugh to see my working rig. Wardrobe was
one of the first things Mr. Ferguson discussed with me,
and he just roared at the idea of me trailing through
dense jungle in long skirts and petticoats; so, at his
advice, I bought some stout linen at the store — only it
looks nice because I chose a pretty royal blue — and
Bee and Adelaide and I set to work to make some
garments according to his directions.

It was too funny to see a young man like he is dis-
cussing gravely the cut and length of skirts, and we
three, who knew about as much of dressmaking as an
emu, hanging on his words. I suppose I ought to be
ashamed to confess it, but I never did like sewing. I
hadn't the time for one thing; it was all I could do to
keep up with my mending at school, and, to let out the
whole dreadful truth, I don't even know how to work
a sewing-machine.

Mrs. Carfew had offered to lend us hers, but when
she found out none of us knew how to work it she said
she'd stitch the seams herself; and she did. And the
garments are a deal better than you'd expect with such
unskilled labour. In fact, I rather fancy myself in
them. I put on one for Billy's benefit last night, and
he said I looked nicer in it than in my proper frocks. I
laughed, but I felt pleased, because — do you know ? — I
myself think rhem rather becoming, and I like to look
nice always, for the satisfaction it gives me, even if
there isn't anyone within miles to admire.

All the blouses are low in the neck and short in the
sleeves, and very loose and comfy. The skirts come
about three inches below my knees, and I'd feel like a
ballet dancer if it were not for mv boots, which are the
last thing in respectable matter-of-fact stoutness. Thev
are of tan leather, buttoning nearly up to the knee, and
finished with a wide band of leather that clasps under it
like miniature leggings. As Billy observed with relief,

i66 The Coconut Planter

any snake will find it a contract to bite through
those.

I wouldn't admit it for worlds, but it simply gives
me the creeps the casual way they talk about snakes up
here. I'm perfectly sure I shall die of terror the first

one I meet alive, and, if it bites me ! But no one

else, as fa!- as I can see, worries about snake bites a
bit. Most carry a little box containing a lancet and
some permanganate of potash, and all you've to do is
cut the wound about and wash it out with the perman-
ganate, after putting a ligature above the wound. And,
if you're very bad, don't forget the universal panacea
up here — whisky.

My gracious, I hope none bite me, but I must keep
cool and learn to face things like this. If I will take
up a man's work I must be prepared to face emergencies
like a man.

But I can't get used to the indifference to snakes
they show. Why, even Dolly Carfew tried to kill a
whip snake when we were out the other day. It was
lying across the path in the low grass, and I was just
putting my foot down on it when it moved ever so
slightly. I shrieked and jumped a mile, and would
have run if I hadn't been ashamed to do so when Dolly
was so calm.

She looked about for a handy stick and pursued the
creature, but she didn't ~get it, for it wriggled away
into the scrub alongside, and even she wasn't game to
follow it in there. After my one shriek I stood biting
my lips to keep any more from rising up, but nearly
paralysed with horror. I hope Dolly didn't know quite
how scared I was, although she did tease me a bit about
not coming to her help.

"If you'd grabbed another stick when I did," she
observed reproachfully, "you might have headed him
off, and then I'd have got him."

The Coconut Planter 167

I drew a long breath. "How can you not mind?"
I said.

Dolly laughed. "Habit," she said. "You get used
to them. Why, some people no more mind them than
flies. Year before last I was staying with Nell Somers.
Her people have a rubber plantation near Samarai and
the place just swarms with snakes, but theirs aren't
poisonous — not many of them ; they are mostly carpets,
and they don't hurt at all, you know; they're only big
and fat." Dolly smiled reminiscently.

"I don't mind them very much, but I couldn't quite
reach Nell's calm indifference. We slept together, and
one night she went to bed ahead of me, and when I
came in with my candle I all but fell over a carpet
snake quite six feet long, who was sliding about the
room. I was so startled that I shrieked, as you did,
and Nell opened a sleepy eye.

"'Have you fallen over him, too?' she asked. * I
wonder how he got in ; we haven't had them inside
lately.'

"'But, Nell,' I expostulated, 'do you mean to say
you can go to sleep with him crawling about ? Did you
know it was here ? '

"* Of course,' she said, ' he's only a carpet; he won't
hurt. Hurry up to bed, there's a good girl. I'm
sleepy.' "

"Good gracious," I said.

"That's what I said, too," Dolly agreed. "1 called
one of the boys and had it killed. No, I draw the line
at sleeping with snakes if I know about it. But always
remember, Sunny, to shake out your shoes before you
put them on in the mornings; snakes love to curl up
inside your slippers, specially death adders."

I looked at her sideways to see if she were playing
on my fears, but she was quite serious.

What a country I've come to.

CHAPTER XXVII

I WONDER if I'll ever get the grass seeds out of my
skirt. That Sunday Billy and I went to Daikois — it's
over a fortnight ago now — I wore a light blue crash
frock, and I've been spending a goodly portion of
each day since in attempting to make it fit to wear
once more. From the hem to the knees it is simply
smothered in infinitesimal pin burrs, so that scarcely a
speck of stuff is visible. At least that's how it was
before I started picking. It's worse than arguing with
the pin feathers of a fowl.

I've picked out billions, and I'm sure there are still
a few left. But even that doesn't worry me as much
as the scrub itch. I've found out what it is, thank
you. It's an invisible insect like a germ — I mean youi
can't see it with the naked eye — that gets tired of his^
native home, and so burrows — dozens and dozens of
him — into your legs as you walk through the bush, and!
raises little whitey-pink lumps on you like a mosquito,,
only they itch worse — if anything can itch worse tham
a real energetic mosquito.

They grow mosquitoes up here, too, with great
success, with more success than enthusiasm, Mr.
Ferguson says. No one can get to sleep without a
net, but we are quite in the front ranks of fashion..
Our house has part of the veranda entirely covered in
with a fine wire mesh; it has just a door to let you in
and out (Bee says we sleep in a magnified meat safe);
and you feel most gloriously vindictive as you hear
their unhappy serenade outside the netting, and smile ai
smile of derisive satisfaction at them. I even pokedl

iC8

The Coconut Planter 169

out my tongue last night. I never met anything like a
mosquito for making you feel downright malicious.

Ouch ! I wish my legs would stop irritating. The
only comfort I have is that Billy's are worse than
mine. I have only about a dozen spots, but he looks
like a measles patient. His are worse sort of lumps
than mine, for they have gone to blisters, and he
daren't scratch at all for fear of bloodpoisoning.

But they comforting-ly tell me the scrub itch will
get used to me or I'll get used to it in time. I hope it's
the former. They certainly don't attack old residents
like us new chums. I suppose our blood is fresher to
them and juicier. Little beasts ! I thought I was going
to break the record and come back without any, for it
was a whole week before they showed up on me.
Billy's came out in a couple of days. All you can do
is rub yourself with disinfectant and sulphur ointment
and soap. vSoaking your feet in hot water is good, too.

Adelaide shudders at the mere idea of getting it.
She hasn't been for any long walks yet, only to the top
of the hill, where you get the loveliest view for miles
away beneath you over the sea and islands around.
What a great big empty land it seems ; we whites are
like a handful of wheat dropped in a field — or are we
tares? I suppose time alone will show.

At present Adelaide is fairly occupied w^ith domestic
difficulties. Mr. Carlyle had secured two boys for us
through the help of Mrs. Carfew — a cook and a house-
maid. Their names are Nessi and Lobi. We tell
Avhich is which by their waist towels. Nessi wears a
blue one, embroidered with green and yellow round the
edge, and Lobi's is bright pink. They have both been
in service before — doesn't that sound civilised and like
a registry office? — so we don't have to teach them the
rudiments of cleanliness, as you do if they are raw
from the bush.

170 The Coconut Planter

But, however carefully you train them, you can
never really impress on them its importance. You
never know, when you remove your eye, what they'll
be up to. I had a proof of it to-day. I sent Lobi to
get a clean glass for Billy when he dropped in this
afternoon and, as he was very long getting it, I rose
and went to the door to see what was detaining him,
and caught him licking the top of it and wiping it on
his waist towel. Adelaide is very fussy about glasses,
and, I suppose, just as he got to the door, he noticed
it wasn't shiny enough to please her.

Lucky for Billy I got impatient, wasn't it?
Gracious, didn't I talk to Lobi. Even though I
haven't picked up much of the pidgin English, I know
a few words in which to scold, and I ended up by
calling him a dirty bushman. That hurt his feelings
terribly; they can't bear being called bushmen.

"Sinuabada, me no bushman," he protested sulkily,
as he retreated to the kitchen. "Sinuabada" means
"mistress," you know; it makes you feel quite large
and important being addressed by such a title at first,
and they call a white man "Taubada." I have to smile
when they apply it to Billy; it seems such an awful
large word for him.

Nessi is sitting outside now under our bougainvillea
putting fresh frangipanis in his hair. We have the
loveliest purple mass of bougainvillea all over the side
of our house, which made for a funny incident yester-
day. Adelaide was making a custard when Nessi, w'ho
had been sent out to bring in some water, fairly bolted,
in crying excitedly, "Sinuabada, meat he come. Quick,.
Sinuabada, you chosen meat, bad fella."

Adelaide clutched the saucepan of milk and gazed
at him in terror; she was firmly convinced he had gone'
mad as he stood there, gesticulating and shaking his-
head so earnestly that his haircomb dropped out.

The Coconut Planter 171

"Meat he come," Nessi repeated, stunned at our
lack of interest. "He kaikai flower altogether."

"Meat! Flour!" Adelaide repeated faintly. "Oh,
Cynthia, do you think he's dangerous. I wish Bee
were here."

"I'll go and see what's the matter," I said with more
boldness than I felt, but, when I got to the door I
nearly collapsed with laughter. Nessi was quite right,
meat had come, only it was live meat in the person
of the Carfews' cow, the one and only in the place.
She was helping herself with gusto to our crotons and
an odd mouthful of bougainvillea every now and then.
It was the waste of the latter that afflicted Nessi's
artistic soul. But I had to go and drive away the cow
for him; he wouldn't go near it. It's funny how scared
they are of cattle.

I told Mrs. Carfew, and she laughed and said I'd
get used to their queer expressions in time, but even
she was amused at the idea of describing the cow as
meat. She said it was the more surprising as they
rarely use the word up there at all. Any kind of meat,
fresh or tinned, is spoken of as bullimacow. That's
what it sounds like, though I believe the proper spelling
is bullamakau, but mine sounds more descriptive,
doesn't it? The way I tell Nessi to open a tin of
sheep's tongues for tea is, "You go catchem tin
bullimacow. You kill him quick."

Doesn't it sound bloodthirsty — killing a tin of
meat?

Now I must go and give Lobi another lesson in
making beds. His ideas on the subject differ slightly
from ours. I hope I shall not be driven to calling him
a bushman again. I don't want to exhaust all my
expletives at once, but I'm getting low in them. I think
I shall have to get Billy to teach me a few new ones.

CHAPTER XXVIII

I LIKE Dolly Carfew so much. She is the liveliest, most
irresponsible kitten of a girl you could ever meet.
And funny with it all ! I could sit and listen to her
talking for a week. Billy doesn't admire her very
much-; he thinks she talks such nonsense, and it tickles
her immensely, because, you see, she is quite the belle
of Woodlark, and to be disapproved of, especially by
such a young boy, is a new experience to her.

"It's all your fault, Sunny," she told me to-day.
She calmly started calling me Sunny the second time
w^e met, and, funnily enough, I didn't mind a bit.
It's rather nice to have a girl just assume your friend-
ship without once thinking it mightn't be had for the
asking. Impudence always appeals to me, which is, I
suppose, the reason I got on so well with Nev. But
Dolly blames me for Billy's obtuseness to her charms.

"The child's so head over heels in love with you,"
she complained to-day as we were resting on a fallen
tree, "that he positively doesn't know I exist, and I'm
not used to it, Sunny."

"I'm sure you're not," I said with frank admiration,
for she looked just adorably pretty at that moment,
swinging her hat in her hand so that the few specks
of sunlight that got through the leaf canopy played
hide-and-seek in her hair. "They spoil you dreadfully
up here from all I can see. I think you have a perfectly
gorgeous time. You're a real uncrowned queen."

"Oh, yes, it's fun in bits," she said, between a
yawn and a laugh, "but you get tired of it. You see,

173

The Coconut Planter 173

there's nothing to do and nowhere to go. It's all right
for you; it's new to you still, and you've got an object
ahead of you, even if you are mad to tackle it, but I
haven't a thing to occupy my mind. And when a
girl's been brought up at a boarding school and come
out in Sydney and been used to dances and theatres and
things like that, it's rather deadly being shunted into a
backwater like Kulumadau to vegetate."

"Ye-es, I suppose it is," I agreed.

"It's so DULL up here," she said, prodding a fat old
spider with her brolly. "Oh, Sunny, you can't guess
how dull it is after a few weeks for a girl. I suppose,
when you've got a husband and a house to look after,
or children, you feel different; and, of course, the men
have their work, but I haven't a thing to occupy my
time with — but the men."

"Well, you needn't pretend to me you don't like
them," I said.

"Oh, I like them well enough," she replied truth-
fully, "some of them; but I'd like them better if the
surroundings helped a bit, you know. There are
several here I'd go with to the theatre and supper and
skating and things down in Sydney, and enjoy it
awfully; but you've got to like a man a lot to enjoy
just going for walks with him day after day, or an
occasional row, and then you've got to walk four miles
to get that. Why, in this benighted place you can't
even ride. Port Moresby is a bit better. You can go
to pictures there once a fortnight."

And then the pout vanished and she laughed. "I
must grumble now and again," she said; "it does me
good and, of course, I do get a good time on the w^hole.
I've only been here about three months this time, and
before that I was in Sydney a year, and I expect dad
will let me go back soon, but I haven't the face to ask
him for a while yet. You see, they've no one but me,

L

174 The Coconut Planter

and, even if they do have to live in the desolate places
of the earth, it's a bit rough on them never having me
with them."

"Desolate places, indeed ! " I said as I looked round.
We were sitting in a slightly cleared spot, where they
had been cutting down some trees, and the ground was
covered with dark yellow wood chips, on which big
honey-coloured ants were dashing to and fro, looking
very busy and occupied, as ants do. And all round us
were rows of big tree ferns like arrested waterfalls, and,
in the bigger trees beyond, staghorns were growing out
at enormous heights, and creepers flaunted round their
boles. Parakeets dripped in and out of the cool green-
ness, and away in the depths we heard the big blue
pigeons calling tenderly to each other.

" Oh, Dolly," I said, catching my breath, " desolate ! "

But Dolly glanced about contemptuously. " It is
desolate," she said. "I don't find scenery company at
all. Give me "

"A man," I laughed.

Dolly looked at me through narrowed lids. " No,"
she corrected. "The man."

"Oh," I said, surprised, "is there a ' the ' already?"

"These walking duets," Dolly replied, "are danger-
ous. If you don't want to be bored to tears, you must
try to get up an interest in your accompanist, and
then — it's not wise to feel, is it?"

"I should think dissecting other people's feelings
would satisfy you for a while," I said.

"That isn't enjoyment," said Dolly. "You can't
enjoy yourself unless you feel. It doesn't make you
happy to know someone else is feeling happy. You've
got to have the feeling yourself."

She pulled a frond of bracken about her shoulders ;
it spread out beyond them and round her like a green
lace cape; a dragon-fly in his mother-of-pearl suit

The Coconut Planter 175

flashed by and a big blue butterfly lumbered in his
wake. "We're two enchanted princesses," Dolly said,
dreamily closing her eyes. "We're enchanted on a
desert island, consumed with hopeless loneliness, pad-
locked in by the sun and the moon and the stars and
the breath of the west wind, and no one can break the
spell and rescue us except "

"Except what?" I asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Dolly has the quamtest, most poetic thoughts at times.

"Except some man whose love doesn't bore us,"
Dolly said.

" Dolly, what a piggy thing to say," I remonstrated.

"I suppose it is," said Dolly, cheerful again, "but
I've got to let off my pigginess on someone. Sunny,
and you're an awful good safety valve. If I did it to
my young men, you know, they'd be terribly hurt in
their minds. I wonder if a man would ever speak to
me again if I told him he bored me whenever he did? "
she mused. "I don't guess so unless he thought I
didn't mean it. But there, what they don't know they
can't grieve over."

And just then we saw Nev coming down one of the
cross paths.

"Here's a man whose love-making wouldn't be
boring, I should think," Dolly observed as he
approached.

"Well, why don't you investigate?" I suggested.

Dolly swung round and fixed me w^ith a piercing
gaze. "I like that from you," she replied, "when
you've had three weeks' start."

"Good gracious," I said, hoping I sounded more
careless than I felt, "why we're not particularly friendly.
Haven't you eyes? "

"I have," she replied, with deep significance,
"though you don't seem to think it."

"You're way off the rails," I said.

176 The Coconut Planter

"Then," Dolly retorted, with impish penetration,
"why do you blush?"

"I'm not," I said indignantly. "I never do."

"Well, the imitation's near enough," she replied
composedly. " How d'ye do, Mr. Close ? " She beamed
at him.

"How do you do ? " Nev replied with his nicest smile
as he passed on.

Dolly leant back and gave way to a fit of silent
giggles while I watched her in growing annoyance.

"Well," I said, when they had subsided a bit, "will
you kindly tell me what is amusing you so much ? "

Her eyes danced. "Oh, Sunny," she waggled a
finger at me, "do you think I'm a man to be bluffed
by you ? You're not particularly friendly, eh ? If you
were just friends he'd have stopped when I deliberately
spoke and beamed like that. I did it just to give him
an obvious chance. He'd have walked back with us.
Oh, I wasn't born this year, next year, sometime,
never, young woman. You two have had a row. That's
what you've had. Now then ? "

"Dolly!" I gasped.

"You're bowled out," she pursued serenely; "but I
won't give you away as long as you don't try any
more bluffs with me. Ain't I right?"

"Well — yes," I admitted, "you're too clever to live.
But, Dolly, don't tell anyone. Please don't ! "

"Oh, I'm only a cat in specks," said Dolly, "not all
the way through. Soyes tranquille, as we used to say
in French lesson. Have you the pen of my sister? No,
but I have the deep, dark secret of the mine manager's
assistant. Cheer up, Sunny; he won't be able to keep
up the chill long in this climate; it's awfully melting."

I reckon it was real nice of Dolly not to ask me
what the row was, don't you? There's not many girls
would be as nice as that.

CHAPTER XXIX

Well, we three don't find life dull yet. You don't
have much chance with Nessi and Lobi on the premises.
If things do seem to lose their savour, we'll be able to
liven ourselves up by betting as to what they'll do next.
We should all lose.

Nessi 's latest triumph was a coffee cake. He
assured us he knew all about cakes, and, indeed, he is a
very fair cook. He used to belong to Mrs. Carfew, and
she trained him. A woman up here doesn't need to do
a hand's turn unless she likes once she has taught her
boys, for they are very quick and willing, but she's got
to know everything there is to know about a house to be
able to teach them.

Nessi was with Mrs. Carfew as cook for three years,
and only left her to go back to his village for a spell,
so that, when he felt inclined to go back to work we
profited by her good training. She has licked him
into shape, too, for she is a wonderful housekeeper.
But that is the tiresome part about labour up here ; you
have to be eternally breaking in fresh recruits and, as
she says, you get tired of teaching the same thing over
and over to new boys, and feel inclined to do the
things yourself — only you can't for long; white people
can't do their own work in this country.

But to return to the cake — Adelaide had intended to
make it herself, and started to mix it up, but Bee
wanted her for something, and Nessi assured her he
could finish it. So, after explaining carefully that she
wanted him to put two spoonfuls of coffee essence in

177

178 The Coconut Planter

it, she left it to him. And when he proudly produced
the cake for eleven o'clock what do you think he'd
done — used ground coffee instead. There's no need for
me to describe what the cake ate like. You might as
well have attempted to chew sand !

However, he consoled us with some scrumptious
granadillas. Have you ever tasted them ? They are
simply delicious, and more than that. They look like
gigantic passion-fruit, only they are pale green outside,
and shaped something like a cucumber, but inside they
are just one packing of pale green and pinky fat fleshy
seeds that taste — but you've got to eat granadilla to
know what it tastes like ! We used to have them with
ice-cream on the Morinda coming up. What wouldn't
I give for a big ice-cream now !

I have been very busy to-day. Mr. Carfew took me
down to the store and introduced me to the man in
charge, so as to arrange for credit. He says it will
be best for me to tell my bank down in Sydney to
send me money orders through the office here; there
aren't any banks.

You see, I find when I come to precise details, I
have all kinds of supplies to arrange for. I don't know
where I should be if it wasn't for Mr. Carfew and Mr.
Ferguson; they tell me all the tiny things you'd never
think of and make everything wonderfully easy for me.
Mr. Ferguson left by the Matunga yesterday, so I have
only Mr. Carfew now, but Mr. F. will soon be back.

You wouldn't believe the things I've got to buy.
Why, I've even got to give them soap. But Mr. Car-
few says there is a splendid river running through my
land, so that, with the fish I can catch and shooting an
occasional pig, my meat bill ought not to be tremendous.
I'm glad I have the stream, that obviates any trouble
about water for drinking until I get tanks, though Mr.
Carfew advises me always to boil it. The streams in

The Coconut Planter 179

Papua are mostly pretty fresh, because, being always
swollen by the tropical rains, they run swiftly; but, he
says, it's better to be sure than sorry, and I wouldn't
enjoy a touch of dysentery at all.

I don't guess I should from the description of it in
my book. I've got a small handbook on tropical
diseases which I'm studying up, for I've not only got to
doctor myself if I'm taken suddenly with dengue or
malaria or fever, but I've to treat my natives, too.
Sometimes my head whirls when I think of myself two
months ago, a sheltered little schoolmistress in civilised
old Sydney, and now about to doctor and drive savages
in the heart of the jungle.

We've been buying medicines to-day, too. Every
employer of labour has to keep a medicine chest full of
goodness only knows what not. Mine appals me when
I look at it; I shall never remember what everything is
for. I know there are bottles of quinine tabloids (that's
another thing every man carries in his pocket) and car-
bolic and boracic ointments and turpentine liniments
and iodine and Epsom salts and chlorodyne and cotton-
wool. Mr. Carfew has introduced me to the doctor of
the hospital here. He is a nice man, too; everybody,
it seems, is nice. When I told Mr. Carfew that, he
laughed and said that, when you're nice yourself, you
just make other people show their nice side.

Anyway, Dr. Ross has spent quite a time explain-
ing to me what to do in emergencies and how to wash
cuts and bandage up a sprain or fracture. Of course, I
am not far from help. Five miles is nothing. Still,
if any accident does occur, I must take charge and
know what to do till I can get assistance, for the
natives, when they have a white boss to depend on, are
like little children ; and I must never lose my prestige
with them or my career as an employer of labour is
over.

i8o The Coconut Planter

I am beginning to feel a tiny bit frightened of such
a responsibility, but Dr. Ross says I needn't be, as
Mr. Carfew and Mr. Ferguson will see that I get quiet,
reliable men, and on most of the islands, where they
will be recruiting this lot, the natives are pretty
peaceful. They aren't cannibals anyway. I don't
know that the last is reassuring if it's the best thing
they can say to their credit.

Nothing else exciting has happened, I think, except
that Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle have returned from their
honeymoon and have gone to live in their house on the
top of the hill which old Miss Brough has been getting
ready for them meanwhile. It's a well-built house.
Next to the Carfews', it's the best house in Kulumadau,
though the Government schoolhouse runs it pretty
close.

People are beginning to call on her in state. Dolly
made me go with her because her mother had one of
her sick headaches and couldn't go. It was useless to
explain that Mrs. Carlyle would sooner have a visit
from Satan's wife than from me. Dolly protested she
had to go, and she wouldn't go alone, and I was selfish
and disagreeable, etc., ad lib. Of course, it ended by
my going.

"I don't want to go any more than you," she said,
as we panted up the hill, "but mother simply has to
call on her for decency's sake. Those days she stayed
with us were enough for me. She was sweet enough,
of course; it paid her to be, but I'd sooner be a
duckling mothered by an angry hippopotamus than
fussed after by her."

Dolly's similes are just too absurd. When she's
made you do something you don't want to, she makes
you laugh away your vexation.

Nev is still here, too. I wonder when he is going
to start on his wild-goose chase after Terry ? Everyone

The Coconut Planter i8i

here thinks it is a wild-goose chase; and, since I've been
here and realised the life, I think more than ever that
he is a mad, chivalric, loyal beast. The three
adjectives are for Nev and the noun for me.

He is a beast. I wouldn't have believed I'd mind
him sulking like this. At least, I wish I could believe
it is sulking. I'm afraid at times his coldness is real
and, now that I won't flirt, he has no further use for
me. How hateful to think that's all I meant to him. I
did think he liked me a little bit for me, and sometimes
I can't help believing he does still. But I dare say
that's only because I want to believe it.

I asked Billy yesterday when Nev was going, and
he said he thought he was waiting for some special
native or other. It was this fellow who first gave Nev
the idea Terry might not really be dead. He is a boy
from some tribe near the mouth of the Fly River — a
Kiwai, I think — and Nev saved his life once from an
alligator, and after that the boy worked for him.

It was when Nev was idly talking to him one
evening trying to pick up a bit of his lingo, that he
first heard of some white man who was captive with an
enemy tribe — the Akarinas.

Naturally Nev started at this, but he knew better
than to display too active an interest to a native and, by
careless questioning and affecting to disbelieve the tale,
he got a few more particulars that confirmed his guess
that it might be Terry. But as to why — if it were so —
they had not killed him and w-hat they were keeping
him for, the boy either could not or would not say.
Perhaps it's something to do with pouri pouri. The
natives, like most savages, are overridden with magic
and superstition.

And it's on that tiny bit of hearsay that Nev is
going up the Fly River with his party, to a part of
Papua where the natives are more savage and

i82 The Coconut Planter

treacherous than anywhere else, perhaps, to see if he
can rescue a man who may be a perfect stranger and
not Terry at all. It's rather fine of him, isn't it? I
wish he wouldn't do things of that sort, because, if he
behaved meanly about other things as well as me, I
could despise him and put him out of my head; but I
can't feel I've any right to despise a man who holds his
life, and all it means to him, as cheaply as that when
there's such a remote chance to save a pal.

But I wonder why he is so horrid to me? Oh, well,
I'm a fool to think about him at all. Hadn't I made
up my mind to put men out of my life and just work
for independence ? A lot of use men have been to me
so far I But somehow you don't seem able to avoid
them altogether; there are such a lot of kind ones like
Mr. Carfew and Dr. Ross. Why on earth do I think
more about Nev than them ? He hasn't done half as
much for me.

In fact, when you come to think of it, he hasn't
done anything for me except introduce me to Mr.
Carrier and kiss me occasionally, and the second he
certainly didn't do for philanthropic reasons. Sunny
Shale, you shall not think about him. He has behaved
abominably, and I should not forgive him if he asked
me to. Which, of course, he never will.

CHAPTER XXX

I'm a nice strong-minded female — I don't think ! After
saying I'd never forgive Nev; of course, I've done
it. But I believe it was the surprise of it. I'd quite
made up my mind he never would make overtures for
peace; so when he did I wasn't prepared.

It was the other night. I was standing by myself
at the top of the hollow not far from the hotel watch-
ing the fireflies dart in and out of the blackness. It
was all very peaceful and still and soothing, and the
stars, too, started popping out above like larger insects,
and then, before I could realise it, Nev was beside me.

I had just caught one for mischief, and put it in a
matchbox, which it made faintly luminous, when I
noticed him. He was standing watching me. He
never said "Good evening " or anything polite and con-
ventional; he said, as if he were resuming a conversa-
tion we'd been at for some time, " Poor firefly ! All
women have a cruel streak."

"So have some men," I retorted with feeling. I had
meant to be very cold and dignified if he ever did
attempt to make it up again, but surprise robbed me
of my wits. Besides, the jab was irresistible.

But he didn't take any notice. He just stood re-
garding me with a frowning kind of thoughtfulness
and — for goodness knows what reason — I stood meekly
on, waiting his next remark, instead of seizing the
opportunity to walk away with dignity. It would have
been a glorious snub, but somehow it's hard to snub

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i84 The Coconut Planter

Nev. And when I stole a glance at him — if he wasn't
grinning from ear to ear !

"You do look so deliciously indignant," he said in
answer to my stare. And, as I couldn't find words,
he added pleasantly, "Surely you're not going to
sulk ? "

"Sulkl" I echoed, finding speech at last. "I like
that from you. What have you been doing, pray, all
this time?"

"Guilty," Nev admitted, with the same unembar-
rassed smile. "And see what a poor figure I cut; so
be a sensible little lass and take warning by me. You
ought to forgive me, too. I've been awfully punished.
Think how long it is since I've had you to talk to."

"Yes, that worried you a lot," I observed
sarcastically.

"I wouldn't have believed it, either," Nev agreed.
"But as it happens it did. And I'm sure you missed
me, too. Shall we kiss and be friends?"

"Certainly not," I snapped.

"Well, be friends, then, without the kiss," Nev
replied equably. " I surrender. I accept the limita-
tions. I apologise. Anything else necessary ? Fix
the indemnity yourself, but don't hit a man when
he's down; it isn't sporting."

He spoke lightly, but there was an undercurrent of
feeling in his voice that showed me the apology — for
apology it was from Nev — was not easy for him. I
thawed instantly. I think it's ill taste to rub a thing
in. I turned to him with a laugh.

"A truce, then," I said, "on the aforementioned
terms. Would you like to come in and smoke the
cigarette of peace round the supper table? Billy is
inside teaching Bee to make patterns and baskets in
string. He gives her a lesson almost every evening
and I am getting positively jealous. I believe he likes

The Coconut Planter 185

her better than me, and, as for her — the shameless
woman frankly admits she adores him."

"Billy's a shrewd youth," said Nev. "His methods
are worth consideration. I suppose, as he is firmly
established with Bee, I'd better lay siege to Adelaide;
or has her support been already engaged by our
far-seeing young friend, or another?"

"Nev, don't be an ass," I said; then we both
laughed, and the last scrap of constraint between us
seemed to vanish, and we felt as we used to on the
boat.

"Don't let us go in," Nev said, stopping in the
doorway. "I've such a lot of arrears in conversation
to make up. Let's go back a bit and watch
the fireflies."

"Do you know, Sunny," he added, as we seated our-
selves, "I've got a horrible suspicion I'm falling in love
with you ? "

"Nevil Close," I said indignantly, "in one minute
I'll slap your face."

But Nev pursued quite tranquilly, "In fact, I'm not
by any means sure I haven't fallen. I think I must
have, or why on earth should I come crawling back to
you like this, when you aren't a bit of good to me, and
I should have put you out of my head weeks ago? I've
been nearly coming for days and days. I've had the
most awful fight with myself every time I've seen Billy
coming in this direction, but I §wore I wouldn't come, I
just wouldn't. And here I am. And what's the good
of it ? "

"Well," I said, divided between wrath and amuse-
ment, "if you're not the limit."

"Well, w^hat is the good of it?" Nev said argu-
mentatively. "I'm nearly in love with you. Well, say
I am, then, if you like. I keep thinking about you all
times of the day when I shouldn't be, and you're up-

i86 The Coconut Planter

setting my sleep. I even hate Billy because he sees
such a lot of you. I — I want you just desperately,
Sunny, and I can't afford to marry you, and — well,
there it is."

"Well, leave it there," I said, as lightly as I could,
"and come in and pay your respects to Adelaide and
Bee. This conversation is not exactly improving."

"I can't see there's anything wrong with it," said
Nev. "I'm only being frank because — well, hang it all,
Sunny, because I respect you so." He met my level
gaze and his eyes lit. "Don't you understand, Sunny,
it's because you're the kind you are, you're making me
play square? If you were another sort of girl I'd cheat
you, maybe. Lots of men would. I'd ask you to marry
me, but say the engagement would have to be for years
— and break it later, or force you to. Men do that ;
it's easy enough. I'd get what I wanted then, or some
of it," he went on with a directness that made me wince
a little, though I wouldn't let him see. "Kisses don't
satisfy, but they do dull the edge of hunger, and "

He did not finish, but stood regarding me with a
queer glowering thoughtfulness. "You were wise to
put me at arm's length, Sunny, but — I wonder why you
did it?"

My mouth began to feel dry inside, but the words
came lightly enough. "With your experience of
women," I said a trifle scornfully, "need you ask?"

"With most women," Nev answered, "I'd know.
It's a common trick to pique a slow hunter. But," he
added, as I coloured up furiously, "you wouldn't do
that. No ! You were either tired of me, frightened,
or — it's Terry." He gripped me suddenly and pulled
me to him. "Is it Terry?" he demanded. "Do you
love him ? "

"Let me go," I stormed. "How dare you touch
me ! Let me go." But I might as well have spoken to

The Coconut Planter 187

the wind. He didn't seem to hear me, he even shook
me a little — unconsciously, I think — and thrust his face
against mine. I hated him for it, and yet — and yet I
didn't, too.

" Do you care more for Terry than me ? " he de-
manded again.

I strained my head back away from him. "You have
no right to ask such a question," I panted angrily. "I
don't care for you at all or — or him either. I hate you,
let me go."

A firefly drifted languidly between us, and by its
light Nev saw my eyes. "It's me you love ! " he cried
in exultation. "You love me!"

"Let me go," I hissed imperiously, "there are people
coming, can't you hear?" And, as the glimmer of a
white dress grew plainer and he was forced to let me
free, I added: "And— it's Terry."

I don't know what made me say it except that
perhaps the bruised feel of his fingers on my arms
made me want to hurt him in turn. I did hurt him,
too. I could tell by the sudden start he gave, but
before he could say anything Bee and Billy were
upon us.

"Why, Sunny," cried Bee, "we were beginning
to think you must have fallen asleep, you've been
here so long; and, as we don't want you down with
malaria, Mr. Burroughs and I came out to carry you
inside."

"We were just coming," I said. "Mr. Close
happened along a while ago and we were having such
an amusing conversation I didn't notice the time." I
still felt on me the vicious desire to hurt which, I
suppose, was why I laid such emphasis on the
"amusing," for I knew it would sting.

Still, with a woman's queer inconsistency, I was
proud of Nev at supper. He behaved as if nothing had

i88 The Coconut Planter

ever happened, and he had been in the habit of coming
there with Billy every night since he landed. Even his
looks were frank and friendly. It was only as he went
he let me see he had not forgotten. As he shook my
hand at parting he said in a low tone, staring into
the eyes I would not drop for him, "I don't believe
you."

I hope the others did not hear.

CHAPTER XXXI

I GET the first instalment of my boys to-morrow. The
recruiting schooner, which Mr. Carfew has been expect-
ing, turned up to-day with some boys for Mr. Ferguson
and others on board ; and the men could let me have
about a dozen, they said; and they have promised the
balance in another week or two at most.

I am to go down to Mr. Carfew's office to-day and
pick them out, and it was so queer to see them there
in a row chattering amiably among themselves, and the
ones who hadn't been to work before regarding every-
thing with a stolid, hidden interest. It made me feel
terribly like a slave buyer, only there's not much slave
about the recruited native. It made me feel quite
nervous when Mr. Carfew explained my responsibilities
to me. I felt more as if I were taking over a school of
children than hiring servants.

Why, before he lets you engage them, the magis-
trate has to satisfy himself the native is willing to
work, and that he will be paid properly, and that there
is no likelihood of his being ill-treated. And at any
time he can send an officer to inspect your plantation,
and if he thinks your huts aren't clean or waterproof
enough, he can simply set light to them and burn them
down. How's that for the high hand ?

And if he thinks any of your land is, for anv
reason, unhealthy to work on, he simply declares it an
infected area, and, on his own hook, posts a notice to
that effect, and then no native may do another hand's
turn on it. If he does, his boss is liable to all kinds of
M 189

igo The Coconut Planter

penalties. I tell you a magistrate up here is a very
liealthy kind of Pooh-Bah.

But Mr. Carfew is a darling. He's tall and lean
and grey, although he is not much over forty, and his
face is all lined and burnt, but he has the jolliest
twinkling eyes. It's easy to see where Dolly gets her
disposition.

I'm worried about Dolly. She's been about a lot
this last week with a black-haired man whose face
I don't like at all. I don't think he's nice, but
Dolly seems to, and that's the trouble. His name is
Erskine, and he's in the Government Survey. I don't
know what they are doing in Woodlark exactly ;
surveying for some new plantations, I imagine.

Anyhow, I hope his work will soon take him away
again, for I do not like to see Dolly with him so much.
I've said before that the men in New Guinea are
divided into very nice and the reverse. I'm sure
Erskine's a reverser. Bee agrees with me; we are all
sorry to see him here. Still, I guess it's none of my
business.

I haven't seen much of Dolly these last few days,
partly on his account, I suppose, and partly because
I've been very busy myself making lists of things I
need. I'm leaving a regular order at the store for
things I shall want every month, and I've been having
to see about seed for my food patch and a dozen other
small matters of that sort. It's rather fun, you know —
like getting ready for a gigantic picnic. Bee and
Adelaide are enormously interested. But it's so strange,
we can't get Adelaide to like Dolly.

I wouldn't go so far as to say she dislikes her.
Adelaide's too gentle a little soul to dislike anybody,
but Dolly shocks her. She thinks she says things no
young woman ought to allow to pass her lips. Poor
Dolly, as fast as Adelaide's memory of her last shocker

The Coconut Planter 191

begins to get faded, she's sure to come out with some-
thing new and worse.

To-day tliey all came with me to help me choose
my boys and, you know, waiting there to be signed
on, I'll admit their clothing to European eyes didn't
seem overdone. You see, they were straight from the
bush, and I've already described that costume to you.
At the first glance poor little Adelaide went a vivid
pink.

"Cynthia, dear," she protested in an agitated
whisper, "you will make them wear some clothes when
they work for you, won't you? You couldn't have
them about like that."

And, of course, here Dolly must undertake to cheer
her. "Never mind. Miss Adelaide," she said con-
solingly, "it isn't much, is it? But, after all, it's
better than a worried look."

The funniest part is that Dolly is quite uncon-
scious of the effect remarks like this produce on
Adelaide. She likes her, she thinks she's the sweetest
little soul, as w^e all do, and, I suppose, takes it for
granted that the admiration is mutual. You see, Dolly
is a young woman who is used to being admired.

However, Adelaide was just beginning to recover
from that remark when Dolly capped it with a worse
to-night. One of my boys, I had noticed, has a very
slender waist, quite waspy, in fact, and I was
commenting on it.

"Oh," said Dolly naively in front of us all— Billy
and Nev were on the veranda with us, and Dr. Ross —
"I expect he hasn't been married very long; he's been
tight-lacing, of course."

Adelaide gave one glance at the men and went
pinker than in the afternoon. She was too confused,
even, to protest, but not so twentieth-century Dolly.
She explained further, for our benefit.

192 The Coconut Planter

It seems that it's the girls choose the men in some
of the islands when they feel inclined to marry. They're
up-to-date in Papua, aren't they ? And when the young
men feel they'd like to acquire a wife — polygamy is
little practised up here, although it's recognised — they
tie bands of leaf or cloth tightly round their middle and
keep them on for months till they become slender. The
idea is that when the girls cast an eye over them they
will choose the thinnest, as presumably they will be
small eaters and, as a wife has to keep hubby in food,
that's a consideration.

Isn't it the quaintest custom you ever heard of?
Nev laughed like anything.

"This is the place for a man," he declared. "My
word, we've something to learn from savages yet. So
he has nothing to do but sit down and let his wife
keep him. There's some inducement to a chap to
marry up here."

"That's all you know," Dolly retorted. "He has
pa-in-law to reckon with. He may send the bride-
groom to work, which, I guess, is what has happened
to Sunny 's boy. He has to do pretty well what
pa-in-law says for the rest of his life, and he has to
give him the money he earns, too."

"My word, it pays a man to have daughters then,"
said Nev. "But where does hubby come in at all?"

"Oh, he has to wait till he's a father-in-law him-
self," Dolly explained, "and then he takes it out on
someone else."

"Mine for daugliters every time," said Nev. "I'd
make a hobby of 'em."

You had to laugh, he said it so drolly, but poor
Adelaide was worse shocked than at Dolly. But she
likes Nev, so she forgave him almost at once. Besides,
women of her sort can always make allowances for men ;
they do it far easier than we. It seems strange that

The Coconut Planter 193

we modern women, who are more lenient to our own
sex than we used to be, demand more of men than we
used ; or is it the times demand more, not we ?

I couldn't like a man unless he were good. By
"good" I don't mean an angel. I guess there aren't
any, male or female. All men, even the nicest of them,
have bad spots just as we have, and their ways of being
bad are different from ours, because the life they lead
and their opportunities are different. Their sins differ
from ours in kind, not in degree, I think; and I'd
expect to forgive a man having done things he'd like
to forget, just as I hope he wouldn't think the worse of
me for having been catty and spiteful and, maybe, even
a bit dishonourable on occasions.

I often think now it was dishonourable of me to
marry Terry without letting his people know. I guess
they have been terribly hurt to hear about it later on,
but at the time I never thought of them at all.

And so it's because I've done what now seem to
me pretty mean things that I could understand a real
nice man having done some, too. But what I couldn't
bear would be the kind that wasn't a bit ashamed or
sorry to himself whatever front he put up to outsiders.
That's the kind I wouldn't forgive.

Perhaps, in a way, I'm trying to explain Nev to
you. Perhaps you've got the idea Nev isn't nice at
heart, but he is; I can feel he is. If I didn't, I couldn't
feel about him as I do. Perhaps it was the way Dolly
talked of him to-day started me off on his topic, for,
when I hinted to her that I thought her black-haired
man was the sort with a past, she replied with some
jabs at Nev; and they're not deserved, that is what
vexed me, though I couldn't convince her.

Nev talks freely, perhaps too freely — I suppose
that's a matter of opinion — but he talks a lot more
freely than he behaves. In spite of everything, Nev

194 The Coconut Planter

thinks a heap about women, and he's real fastidious
about them, too, in his own way ; but his way is rather
his own and not easy at first to follow.

You see, since we made it up he and I have had
some long talks together— really sensible talks, like two
pals — and I've learnt a lot about the other sides of him
I never suspected. And, at the core, Nev is nice about
women. I don't say he mayn't have done things I'd
hate to know about, but it doesn't please him to recall
them, and, though I'm not sure he wouldn't take as
much as any girl was fool enough to give him with
her eyes open, he'd never cheat or trick her into it or
play her otherwise than square if she were too young to
understand what she was doing.

Maybe that doesn't sound like a Bayard or romantic
hero, and I don't claim he's cither, but I don't think
it's such a bad working character for an everyday
world that isn't nearly as pretty at close quarters as you
think when you start.

Maybe, it's because I think like this that Nev agrees
with Billy now that I've got more sense than any
woman he's ever met ; he says it's almost uncanny in
a girl as young as I am.

Ah, well, when you've been married and deserted
and widowed, and all in a few years, it makes you think
a little, doesn't it?

CHAPTER XXXII

You wouldn't believe how nice Nev is again. He
seems to have wiped out of his mind our weeks of
estrangement and all the nonsense on the boat, and is
just like Billy, a dear, good-natured friend, except that
he says things at times.

He and Billy are building my house for me. Aren't
they dears? Aren't they — well, I can't find an adjective
to explain what I think of them ! I know about as
much of house-building as any other girl, and I could
no more tell my natives what to do than fly. It was
worrying me, too. So when Nev told me to tell him
exactly how I wanted my house arranged, because, as
soon as my boys arrived, he and Billy would go out
and set them at it, I nearly hugged them both. I told
them so, and for the first time I saw the old flash in
Nev's eye.

"Better not," he said lightly. "Hugging's a game
two can play, and I don't think you'd win. Would
she, Bill ? " '

Billy just grunted. It's rather a pity, but I believe,
since Nev and I have made it up, he is rather jealous.
He tries not to be, and he says very little; but I think
he feels he's no longer the only one I have to depend
on to do things for me.

The other day, when I asked him why he hadn't
turned up to morning tea, as usual, he replied care-
lessly: "Oh, I didn't know you'd want me, now Nev
comes."

"Billy, how can you?" I said, seizing his shoulders

195

196 The Coconut Planter

and shaking him gently. "How can you be such a
little beast? You know I like you both."

"Yes," said Billy, still trying to keep the careless
note, "but you like Nev best."

"Billy," I said reproachfully, "that's a mean thing
— to try and make me compare my friends. I like him
in quite a different way from you."

"Yes," Billy muttered, "that's the devil of it." At
least, I think that's what he said. He wouldn't repeat
it when I asked him.

But, bar that little outburst, he has been the same
as ever, and I can't feel grateful enough over the
house. It is nearly finished, and when it is I am going
out to live in it. The native huts are all done, and
they have already chopped down an acre or more to
plant with foodstuffs, so I am getting on as quickly
as I can expect.

Bee and Adelaide seem awfully sorry to lose me;
they say they are, anyway. Bee even promises that,
when I begin to feel lonely, they will both come out
and live with me for a while. And even Adelaide,
though I could see the prospect filled her with terror,
did not dissent.

It's the dearest little house. It's built up on piles,
of course, and the walls are of split saplings, bound
together with fibre and lianas, so it looks very rustic
and picturesque. If my hair were only a different
colour, I should feel like the heroine of the tale of "The
Three Little Bears."

The walls are lined inside with unbleached calico,
so that no one can peer through the chinks, and they
are roofing it now with sago palm leaf. Billy is rather
smart at carpentering, too; it's a hobby of his,
and he has promised to make me some bamboo chairs.
There are heaps of clumps waving their feathers on
my land, so they might as well be useful to me. He

The Coconut Planter 197

said it wouldn't be any trouble at all when I depre-
cated the idea; in fact, that he'd love to do it. He'll
come out and do it Saturdays and Sundays. Just now
he and Nev take alternate days off at the mine to
superintend my building. Mr. Carlyle is a very oblig-
ing boss, isn't he ?

In the evenings Nev has been giving me lessons
in book-keeping. Mr. Ferguson told me you simply
must keep books if you want to know how you stand
at all financially, and I want to do everything in order;
so I'm trying to master the intricacies of it. Oh, dear,

I never dreamt There I go again. But, honestly,

I don't believe there's anyone who hasn't tried it could
possibly guess how much of miscellaneous knowledge
you've got to have to grow a simple thing like coco-
nuts.

Still, if I've got to keep books, I've got to. I must
have one to tabulate my food supplies, to say how
much of things I have at the beginning of every
month, and how much is used or damaged, and how
much left to carry on into the next month. And I
ought to have another book, too, with a record of
exactly how much labour is done every day and what
kind, whether planting or felling, or burning or weed-
ing, and at the end of every month I add it up and
see how much has been done and how much it has cost ;
and then, by dividing it with the number of my bovs,
I see how much each one is costing me and how much
work he does for it, and whether I can afford more boys
or not. It sounds beautifully simple when Nev ex-
plains it, but I don't know how I'll manage alone; I've
never kept any sort of accounts in my life.

Still, it's never too late to make a start, is it? And
if I get tangled at first, Nev and Billy are only five
miles away, and either of them will help me straighten
it out, I know. Oh, I do hope I'll have brains enough

igS The Coconut Planter

to carry it through. When I said that to Nev he just
said I had grit enough, anyway. Somehow it heartened
me up wonderfully. I feel I just shall succeed because
he believes in me.

He added laughingly: "Perhaps you'll make your
fortune before I do, Sunny. I'll come along and marry
you then, since you'll be able to keep yourself in the
manner I'd like to see you kept. Would you have me
then ? "

"That is a problem, isn't it?" I said, chivying a
small centipede off my book on to the floor, where Nev
trod on it.

"How round your arms are. Sunny," he observed
irrelevantly when he had disposed of the intruder.
"You've got prettier since you came up here."

"Now, then," I said sternly, "what about the terms
of peace ? "

"Never touched 'em," said Nev, with a real boy's
grin. "Hang it all. Sunny, I can talk, can't I?
You can't make the leopard change his spots,
even if he does lie down on the mat like a faithful
canine."

The idea of Nev as a faithful canine gave m€ hope-
less giggles, and I dropped a blot of ink over my
book-keeping. "Come along, let's get back to work,"
I said, as I dried it up with my wet blotting-paper.

"Reminds you of school days, doesn't it?" said
Nev, "sucking your blotting-paper to mop up ink. I
used to get myself awfully messy writing. Didn't
you ? "

"Frightfully," I said; "and I'll never forget spill-
ing an inkwell down the front of my best pinafore. I
wept enough to wash it out."

"I wonder what you looked like in pinafores?" Nev
said thoughtfully. "Did you wear socks too?"
"And little fat curls round my neck," I nodded.

The Coconut Planter 199

"Why," said Nev, "you must have been a darling
even then."

Our eyes met and \\c laughed. "You come back
to book-keeping," I advised; "it's safer."

"But it's awfully uninteresting, in comparison.
We've done a heap of work to-night, Sunny. Isn't
it worth one little kiss ? "

"Now, Nev," I said sternly.

"I only said a wee one," he coaxed laughingly.
"And I've been good for such ages. Remember, I
haven't got a Bee or Adelaide, like you, to tuck me
up at nights. I've most forgotten what one feels like.
And think of our hard work."

"Oh!" I said, "if you expect pay for your kind-
ness " But before I could finish I saw a flash of

real anger in Nev's eyes. He leant across the table
and gripped my hands so hard I nearly screamed.

"Beg my pardon!" he said sharply. "Beg it at
once ! "

For half a minute I stared back angrily, and then
I dropped my eyes.

"Yes, I beg your pardon," I said. "It was a mean
thing to say, and I take it back, Nev. But you can't,
you know; it won't do."

Nev sighed as he let go my hands. "I wish vou
weren't so confoundedly right, Sunny," he said. "But
you are, you know ; only — only I do wish things were
different.'"'

I wonder if I'm a shameless hussy; but, you know,
I can't help wishing they were, too.

CHAPTER XXXIII

My house is getting on at a great rate. I go out every
day or so to see how things are getting on ; but there's
not much I can do yet, as Billy and Nev are using
almost all my natives for the house and odd jobs. I
have set one or two clearing for my food patch, though,
and I hope to have it well under way soon.

The house is built on a bit of rising ground about
a quarter of a mile away from the native huts. It
doesn't do to build your own dwellings too near
natives', because they almost all have malarial parasites
in their blood, and the mosquitoes carry the infection
from them to white people. I think that's the way
it's done. I'm getting information and advice poured
into my head every day at such a rate that it will be
a perfect miracle if I don't get it mixed up somewhere.
If there's a sorting department anywhere inside your
brain, mine just now is doing overtime.

I'm in a pretty situation. I look down on a tossing
tangle of greenery, billowing waves of it spreading for
miles. When I stood up there this morning I had a
little shiver of anticipation as I thought what it will
look like in a few years more, when, instead of all
this rank loveliness, there'll be orderly row upon row
of palms, laden with the greeny-brown nuts that spell
money — money.

I suppose you think I'm a mercenary little beast,
thinking of nothing else. I'm not, really. I don't
want to be terribly rich. I don't suppose I've the
chance, anyway; but I do want to make enough to

The Coconut Planter 201

live on comfortably. And, anyway, I'm trying to
earn it myself; I'm not asking help from any-
one, though goodness knows people are giving me
enough.

Yes, I had a real shiver of joy as I thought of what
it will be to look down on my trees — my very own,
hundreds and hundreds of them. Of course, I shan't
get it all cleared or planted at once, but they tell me
I ought to get it done well inside the year if I keep
them at it. I'm going to push on as fast as I can.
According to my agreement with the Government, I
have only to have one-fifth done in the first five
years. They're awfully lenient, aren't they? But
they won't have to hurry me up. I'm dying to get
it finished.

Of course, it all comes back to a question of money
— whether I can afford to hire the number of natives
to get it through speedily. Although my capital is
so small, and my trees w'on't be of any commercial
value for nine or ten years, I hope to be able to pay
off expenses somewhat by growing, as Mr. Carrier sug-
gested, cover or catch crops; that is, planting between
my coconut trees some small shrubs, such as maize,
tapioca, bananas, ginger, arrowroot, vanilla, cayenne
pepper, or any things like that that don't take
long to ripen, and for which there is a ready
market.

Nearly everyone does that up here. Clean weeding
lias quite gone out of fashion ; it's too expensive, for
weeds grow at an incredible rate in this moist climate.
Even the planters who don't w^ant to bother with pro-
ductive cover crops generally plant certain weeds, such
as the cow-pea or wild passion flower, that do not take
too much out of the soil and that keep other weeds
down. Then your keeping the ground clear only
amounts to pulling up a few odd weeds that sneak in

202 The Coconut Planter

among your chosen ones, and keeping bare earth for
about three feet round each tree.

But I need all the money I can make, so I'm going
to grow cover crops. I think I'll plant arrowroot for
one. I like it so much to eat myself, and when I'm
sending it away I'll be able to think how much good
food I've helped to supply to babies and poor sick
folks.

I'm pining to get out to my house and really start
myself, even if it does sound ungrateful to Adelaide
and Bee.

At present I'm having an exciting time with Mrs.
Carfew's machine. I'm making sheets. I bought the
stuff at the store, and I'm engaged in hemming them.
Mrs. Carfew sits and laughs at me. I'm incredibly
ignorant on some points; but when you grow up in a
school, and not a home, as I told her, you can't expect
to learn domestic things. I always thought sheets came
from the shops ready made, but they don't — not here,
anyway.

And I'm insisting on hemming them myself, be-
cause I simply cannot let Mrs. Carfew do all my work
for me, kind as she is. But, oh, dear, I've never used
a machine in my life before, and you wouldn't believe
how very difficult it is to master. The blessed thing
back-fires with me every time I stop to hitch the stuff
higher. All of a sudden round tears the wheel the
wrong way and snap goes the cotton, and I have to
start again. I get so exasperated at times I feel I could
stamp on it.

It's rather nice of Mrs. Carfew not to mind me
practising wiih her property, isn't it? But, as she
said, neither she nor Dolly are what you call sewers.
She doesn't do any fine work with it, only hemming
towels and sheets and things, as I am doing, and I
can't put it very much out of order for work like that.

The Coconut Planter 203

Besides, Nev says that if I smash it up he'll mend it
for us. What it is to have useful friends !

You'd have laughed to see my first efforts. All
Kulumadau is taking an interest in my progress with
her. I say "her" because the machine has almost
grown to seem a person these days. I call her Sarah,
because she is so bad-tempered. We used to have a
maid called Sarah at the school.

Mrs. Carfew took off the needle and thread first and
let me practise working the treadle smoothly ; and even
that is much more tricky than you would expect. Some-
how I can't reconcile the two different movements of
the treadle and the needle. The needle goes about two
and a half times as fast, and every now and again I
unconsciously hurry up the treadle to come in with it,
or half stop to catch up a beat, and then there's
trouble.

However, apart from her vicious little habit of
breaking her thread when I am in the middle of an
important part, we are getting on better together.
Sarah's temper is improving with the natural corollary
of mine doing the same. My sheets are getting finished,
and I've hemmed some towels and half a dozen servi-
ettes. You wouldn't believe the number of things
you've got to have, even for a baby house out in the
bush.

We're going to buy my saucepans this morning.
There are two stores up here, so we can shop with
dignity. If not suited at one, we can say we will try
the other. I brought up my crockery with me from
Sydney. Dolly thinks it so pretty, and I do rather
myself. It is not very good; I couldn't afford good
china, much as I love it. Besides, it would have been
a waste of money, since it will soon be broken ; but
it is rather a dainty pattern. Everything has a pale
little wreath of green leaves round the edge — round the

204 The Coconut Planter

outside of the plates and the rims of the cups. It looks
so cool and clean.

Dolly has offered to come out and stay with me for
the first week or two, until I get used to the loneliness
and strangeness of it. But, though I think it was dear
of her to want to, I have refused. It's no use starting
coddling myself. If I've got to live here for the next
dozen years alone, I might as well start the way I
mean to go on. If I want company to start with, I'll
want it all the time. It's best to begin the way I mean
to go on. Don't you think so? I must harden myself.

I won't say I like the idea of being alone. In fact,
I feel horribly scared whenever I think of it; but when
I decided to take up a plantation I knew there would
be a lot of drawbacks. I don't think I suspected quite
how many, or my courage might have petered out. But
once you've put your hands to the plough you've got
to keep on pushing. And, of course, nothing is ever
really as bad when you face it as your thought makes
it seem beforehand.

Another reason why I refused to let Dolly come
was that, though she ofTered willingly, I know at the
back of her mind she doesn't want to leave Kulumadau
just this minute. You see, the Survey is expected in
every day, and her precious Erskine man with it.

What Dolly sees in him I cannot understand.
When I delicately tried to fmd out the other day, she
only laughed at me; but from what she said, and didn't
say, I've come to the conclusion it isn't so much she
cares for him as that he puzzles her. He's got a streak
of Spanish in him on his mother's side, and that lends
him a certain charm of mystery. His slight foreign-
ness — for it is very slight — appeals to her imagination.

The whole trouble is, he understands her and she
doesn't him. The men who understand women make
awful husbands; they know far too much to live com-

The Coconut Planter 205

fortably with. They're worse than sisters. But as
lovers they are thrilling. It's dehghtful to be seen
through for a change.

But I wonder if Dolly quite realises where his role
should end. If she doesn't, it's not my fault; but,
even though we are good friends, there's a limit to
what one girl may say to another.

CHAPTER XXXIV

My house is finished at last, and it looks just sweet.
We all went out to-day and inspected it — Adelaide and
Bee, and Dolly and Billy, and Nev and Dr. Ross, and
Mr. Ferguson, who is back again now. We had quite
a jolly house-w-arming, although it wasn't quite that,
for they wouldn't let me stay the night — it's Sunday.
'We just went and had tea there and admired it, and
they made me come back to Kulumadau with them
for to-night. They said I could go out again to-morrow
morning and stay.

I wasn't sorry, in a way, to be coming back with
them ; they are such dears, and it's sure to be a bit
lonely, though they all say they will come out and
pay me visits. Bee and Adelaide have begged me to
come to them every week-end; but, of course, I don't
know yet whether I shall be able to leave my boys to
their own devices like that.

I got the rest of them yesterday ; that makes twenty
altogether. I signed the contracts in front of Mr.
Carfew. So I'm anxious to get them at work, as you
can guess. We took them out with us this morning
when we set off. They all carried supplies and their
axes and scrub knives. It's wonderful the weights
they can carry, while we white folk pant with a hand-
bag.

They looked picturesque, too, trailing after us in
a long single file, with their bundles on their backs;
but people up here get so used to them that I don't
think anyone but me saw the picturesqueness. Once

206

The Coconut Planter 207

I slopped and looked back at them, and, do you know,
I had the most absurd feeling of pride. I felt like an
ancient slave owner must have felt, as I looked at their
fine shoulders and good-tempered faces. And to think
they were mine — mine for three years, anyway, to do
my bidding ! It is an intoxicating feeling to employ
labour in quantities, isn't it? I suppose it's absurd
to call my little band "quantities," but I've never owned
one single Sarah Jane before, so you must excuse the
exaltation.

Everybody was loud in praises of the house. Nev
and Billy had seen that the boys had been extra careful,
and they say it may last me two years, it's so stoutly
built. It looked quite nice even from the outside. Its
palm thatch gave it an effect of cosy brownness, and I
tried to keep that idea in the few furnishings it did
possess.

Not that it was elaborate- I had a big brown
square in the centre of my living-room that Bee had
insisted on giving me from their store. She grew so
vexed when I refused it, I really had to give in. I
couldn't refuse the things that were showered on me
without hurting them, for they all seemed to want to
give.

Mrs. Carfew presented me with a table in spite of
my protests, and Adelaide with a brown tablecloth for
it, on w'hich she had embroidered my initials. Dolly
had made me tw^o lovely linen cushions of dark blue
that just lent the room the touch of colour it wanted.
And Billy had, through working a secret overtime, got
two bamboo chairs finished and a promise of more,
and Dr. Ross had smuggled out a splendid reading
lamp, and Nev brought me the bonniest little revolver —
a perfect gem — and Mr. Ferguson some books. For one
minute, when I stood in the middle of all their gifts
and their kind smiles I felt I should disgrace myself

2o8 The Coconut Planter

and burst out crying. And to think I've only known
them a few weeks. How good people are ! But they
simply wouldn't let me say so.

And I've hung on the walls a few old pictures I
used to have in Sydney — "The Laughing Cavalier,"
and the heads of two beautiful lions by some artist I
don't know, and one or two small water-colours a
brother of one of the schoolgirls had once forced on me.
He is rather a promising young artist I believe now:
the last I heard of him was that the Sydney Gallery
had bought one of his pictures. So that my walls looked
quiet and good, and the browny unbleached calico was
harmonious, even if it wasn't dainty like wallpaper.

My bedroom doesn't look as pretty as I could have
wished. I can't have very dainty things about in a
house like this even if I possessed many, which I don't.
But there's a mirror of course — what woman could live
without one ? — full length ; and, even if my bed is only
a wooden stretcher, it has a nice dark blue counter-
pane and a big white mosquito net, which I hemmed
and weighted myself, and Billy has fixed me a whole
long row of pegs in the wall to hang my frocks on,
and I've hung blue curtains over them, so it doesn't
look at all bad.

And the kitchen, with my big wire-netted safe,
looks positively imposing. Nev has picked out what
he thinks is the best of the crowd for my houseboy. I
protested at first I didn't want one in such a tiny house,
but he insisted I did. If I was going out to work in
the bush among my boys I'd be too tired when I came
in to start getting meals for myself; anyway, he wasn't
going to allow me to try. Did you ever hear of such a
bully ? But the others said he was in the right, so he
had his way. I expect he'd have had it even if they
hadn't.

Meva is the name of my cook-general, and he's got

The Coconut Planter 209

the most enormous crop of hair I've seen on a native
yet. He once worked on the mine under Nev, and
after that was his cook, and he says he is pretty trust-
worthy. At least, he'll see I'm moderately well looked
after. Nev has explained minutely to him what v>'ill
happen if he doesn't.

Nev still hates the idea of me going to live there
alone, but he's given up protesting. Only, as we said
good-bye to-night, he said in a low voice :

" You know how to use what I gave you this after-
noon. Don't be afraid if there's need." And then,
as I gently drew my hand away to say good-bye to
Dr. Ross, he added in a tone I'd never heard from
him before :

"Oh, Sunny — take care of yourself."

CHAPTER XXXV

How time flies ! I've been out here nearly a fortnight
now, but I can scarcely believe it, it's gone so quickly.
I'm getting quite used to it now, and, though I feel
lonely sometimes at night, I'm generally so sleepy I go
to bed almost directly after tea, and, as I'm out at
work as soon as I get up, I haven't very much time
to think about it.

Somehow, I'm not a bit scared now to be here by
myself; I've grown so casual I sometimes even forget
to take Nev's revolver into my bedroom with m^,
although that is silly. I must try to remember, for
this is the country of the unexpected, and you never
know when I might want it — if for nothing more than
to shoot a snake that fancied indoor quarters.

The first night after I had finished kaikai, and Meva
had retired out to the boy house, I did begin to feel
queer. Everything was so desperately still. The leaves
that danced every now and then across my veranda
sounded like stealthy footfalls. I seemed to see all kinds
of shadows flickering on the walls behind me, and I re-
membered the tales I'd heard of wild natives hiding
under the floors of houses and spearing people through
them with their tremendous spears.

Once I actually jumped out of my chair seeing a
shining point come through by my feet; but at that I
pulled myself determinedly together. It was no use
me thinking I could keep up this kind of life unless I
had my nerves under control, so I opened a book and
tried to read.

The Coconut Planter 211

It was very hard for a bit. I would keep getting
goose flesh up my neck when I seemed to feel shadows
stealing in on me, but I just wouldn't turn my head.
I would not. And then I'd find the shadow never came
any closer, and tell myself what a fool I was in a
whisper that sounded to me as loud as a shout.

And then started the most hideous din you can
imagine. I rushed to the doorway and looked out. It
was all my boys sitting round a fire by their huts play-
ing drums and roasting a whole pig one of them had
speared that day. There are a lot of wild pigs in
Papua; in some places they have risen to the dignity
of a pest. People say they are not indigenous, but are
the descendants of pigs that must have been let loose
by early traders and who, liking their environment,
have flourished exceedingly.

It's rather surprising when you find out how very
long ago New Guinea was discovered. In fact, it has
been discovered and rediscovered over and over by
different nations. Portugal was the first w-e know
of. One of her sailors found it in the sixteenth
century. And a Spaniard — a relation of one of the
Cortes' of South America — came upon it a few years
later.

Then the Dutch started trading with it in the seven-
teenth century, and our own Captain Cook surveyed
parts of it a hundred and fifty years later. But it seems
funny that nobody tried to annex it till 1792, doesn't
it? And then, of course, it was the British.

Still, it took about a hundred years then of argu-
ments and annexations and cancelling them before it
w^as finally divided up in Europe. It is because of all
the different peoples w'ho have had a finger in the pie
that it's got two names like that. It was a Portuguese
who called it Papua and a Spaniard who gave it the
name of New Guinea; and now it's been transferred

212 The Coconut Planter

to us, and Papua is its Australian designation hence-
forth. Amen !

That's a learned dissertation, isn't it? How the
schoolmistress peeps out ! I always knew a little about
it, but it isn't till you belong to a place that you begin
to get really interested in how it came to be just as it is.

And I'm more than a page away from the pig my
boys were roasting !

I'd seen them carrying it home between two of them,
slung on a stout pole by its tied feet. They hung it up
over the fire exactly as it was and roasted it whole.
The smell of singeing was very strong as I stood on
my tiny veranda looking down at them; and somehow
the very smell reassured me — -it was so ordinary and
respectable and everyday. All of a sudden my fears
seemed absurd. Why, here had I been behaving like
a child when I Avas the only grown-up, with all these
children depending on me. I went inside and straight
to bed.

I lay awake for a little with one hand under my
pillow holding my revolver. Just for a bit the stillness
got on my nerves again. The bush can be so very
deadly still, and you keep waiting for some sound to
come and reassure you — to show there is life some-
where. After a little, though, I began to understand
it wasn't stillness at all. It's only when there are
people about the wild feigns silence.

First, I was aware of a myriad tiny rustlings under
the house. I heard a wood-mouse cheep, then a sort of
possum they have here clambered noisily over my roof
and began a little hissing quarrel with his wife; at
least, I presumed it was his wife — the row sounded
domestic. Then, far away, I heard the heavy tramp,
tramp of a cassowary, and once a wild pig came
grunting and rooting right under my floor; and then
1 think I must have gone to sleep.

The Coconut Planter 213

When I woke next morning the sun was high
among the leaves dancing through them ; cockatoos
were screaming as they set out for their morning drink,
and, as I sprang to the door and looked out, a flock
of hornbills went overhead, the whir of their wings
almost deafening as they shot away in tlie blue, blue,
blueness.

The air had a slow tepid feel, but it was still fresh
with the peace of night the sun had not yet fully
wakened. I laughed and stretched my arms over my
head, and promised myself that in such a wonderful
land I'd never feel frightened again. I don't believe I
will either — not badly.

I'm beginning to love the work and my house, and
Meva waits on me hand and foot, so that I feel more
than ever like the queen of twenty slaves. I am trying
to make my tiny clearing look homelike, too. Nev got
me some croton slips, and he and Billy put in last
Saturday afternoon planting them all round to make
a hedge; they ought to look splendid when they grow^

And we've transplanted a couple of wild hibiscus
bushes that I'm watering night and morning, tenderly
coaxing them not to die; and I've brought home some
most beautiful ferns — one large maidenhair that would
make Miss Conway die of envy could she see it. I've
hung them up in my veranda and in my living-room
in some wire baskets Billy twisted up for me, and you
wouldn't believe how much cosier and more homely
they make the place look.

And, on top of everything else, I've got a cat — a
kitten rather; I call him Micky. He's the sweetest pet
that ever was, all black except for his paws and tiny
little white shirt. I found him sleeping peacefully on
my bed last Saturday after the boys had gone. I know
I keep saying the same thing over and over, and I
expect you're bored, but I can't see why there should

214 The Coconut Planter

be such a lot of darling, big-hearted people round
where I happen to live.

And what brought it forth was just that I said
casually the Sunday we were all out together that I
thought I'd have to catch a baby pig and tame it like
the native kiddies do, for I couldn't live without some
kind of pet.

And then I find this kitten cuddling on my pillow ;
and when I'd finished hugging it and given it some
tinned milk, I found another parcel on my dressing-
table. It was two boxes of Dolly's most cherished face-
powder that she gets up from Sydney, and scrawled on
a piece of paper: "For goodness' sake don't let your
complexion go even if you are going to live in the
bush."

I sat down and laughed aloud; it was so like Dolly.
And I love it, too; it's got the most heavenly scent;
it's much scentier than mine. Not that I use much ; I
don't need to. Olive skins like mine don't burn or
freckle, and I haven't noticed any change for the worse
in it yet. But it was dear of her to send it like that;
it's her thinking of it I appreciate so. She is a nice
girl, and miles too good for that black-haired Erskine
wretch. I hope she won't be silly enough to have him.

I'm getting on with my work, too. I've got my
nursery started already. On one side of my land, near
the creek, there was a patch fairly free from timber.
In fact, most of it was grass. So it didn't take us as
long to clear as we expected, and we'd got it all trenched
for about eighteen inches down and divided into strips
six feet wide, as per order, between the paths, when
Mr. Ferguson came out yesterday to give me a lesson
in planting.

You pack the nuts in little cross trenches about two
or three inches apart, and still in their native husks;
and, he explained, you must be very careful that the

The Coconut Planter 215

stalk end is uppermost, so that the shoot may come
out vertically from one of the eyes of the shell. Isn't
the young sprout of a coconut a strange white thing?
There was one inside a nut we ate at Samarai, and when
we broke it open and found it, looking for all the
world like a peeled leek, I almost felt a murderer. It
seemed the end of meanness to have killed it before it
had had a chance to live on its own.

Mr. Ferguson advised me to oversee all the planting
most carefully myself, and also when they are to be
transplanted, which will be in about five months' time,
as the natives are apt to be careless and often carry
the nuts for convenience by their shoots, w-hich is very
liable to injure them. He showed me how to fill up
the trenches with soil, so that only a couple of inches
of the nut show^s above the surface, and then he advises
me to cover them with three or four inches of long cut
grass, after I have watered them well. There won't be
any need to water them after that, as it rains so
regularly here.

Dolly was right. It does rain every day. I got
wet three times the first day I was out, but the sun
dried my clothes on me so quickly I didn't think it
would matter, but I had the loveliest cold next day,
and a wee touch of fever, I think. At any rate, I kept
shivering and then getting burning hot; but I promptly
dosed myself with my 5-gr. tabloids of quinine, and I
was pretty right the day after that.

So next time I went in to the township I promptly
bought a good stout umbrella; everyone carries one up
here, no matter what sort of day it is — rnen and women
alike. You see, it's too hot to wear raincoats; and
anvway, they aren't much good when Woodlark decides
reallv to rain. It soaks through any kind of water-
proof, and through an umbrella, too, for that matter,
but still, if it isn't too heavy, one comes in handy.

2i6 The Coconut Planter

Nearly everyone goes in for coloured ones, too,
which gives quite a festive appearance during a shower ;
mostly they are red and green — red to deaden the sun
and green because it's good for your eyes. You can
tell people by their gamps a mile off. Nev's is the most
vicious shade of emerald you ever saw. Mine is dark
blue, to match most of my clothes. I'm a vain little
piece, as he tells me.

And now I think I'll so to bed.

CHAPTER XXXVI

We're right in the thick of clearing now. It's most
wonderfully interesting. First, the men cut and slash
their way through the thick lianas and vines, tearing
the creepers away from the trunks of the trees ; then
they use their axes on the trees themselves until, with a
terrific crash, over they topple.

It seems a shame sometimes, I think, to see such
glorious things destroyed and all their parasites and
staghorns tumbled, too, with their glory ; but it shows
you how quickly the commercial spirit can warp your
sense of beauty that it's only now and again I feel like
that. Most of the time I view them with as much
indifference and impatience as weeds; the only interest
I take in them is how soon they can be got rid of.

And some of it is magnificent timber, too ; it seems
a shame it has to be burnt. They say nearly all the
varieties we have here — most of which so far only go
by native names — are good for commerciijl purposes —
for engineering works, etc., whilst one especially, which
the natives call illimo, is just the thing for cabinet work.
Billy is going to make me a little work-table out of it,
so I am saving all we cut. It is something like cedar.
The Carfews have some furniture made of it; one way
it has a surface of satin.

There are a couple of sawmills in the territory, but,
of course, it wouldn't pay me to ship down such a
small quantity to them — if they'd buy it even ; so burnt
it must be. But it does seem a pity.

Mr. Ferguson came out this afternoon to see how

217

2i8 The Coconut Planter

I was getting on, and seemed very pleased with my
progress. Certainly my boys are working well. I was
afraid at first they might attempt to play up with me
being a woman, but they haven't. I don't guess I'd
be a soft snap. I can't stand insubordination. I could
even make the girls at school mind me when my blood
was up, and anyone who can impress girls of fourteen
or so can tackle anything in the way of small rebellions.

Anyway, they are giving no trouble. Still, I'm glad
I'm near and handy to help if anything should go
wroncr. I wouldn't like to be on the mainland. I
should always be afraid some bush boys might descend
any minute of the day or night on me; they're awfully
fond of killing. There's some feather ornament —
boboro, I think it's called — they are not allowed to wear
till they have killed their man, and they are terribly
proud of it. The Government have made wearing it
illegal, but they still do on the sly among themselves,
and only by the last boat w^e heard there had been two
murders near Port Moresby just on account of this.

Two young women of the tribe had been teasing
their sweethearts because they hadn't these ornaments,
and got them so worked up they went straight out and
killed the tw^o first unoffending boys they came across.
One of them happened to be in Government employ, so
there's going to be trouble.

But the natives of Woodlark are very quiet. They
aren't cannibals either — never have been — which is re-
assuring to think of when the shadows get dancy and
strange at night.

And I'm getting on like a house on fire. We've
got about twenty acres cleared already. That's not bad
going, is it ? To-day I just stood and w-atched them
and wondered if I were dreaming or if it could really
be vSunny Shale standing there m a short skirt and
pith hat, with a riding-whip in one hand and a note-

The Coconut Planter 219

book in the other, recording the areas cut, and chivying
on the lazy ones. My old self wouldn't know me
anyway.

But oh! I'm ever so glad I came. I'm as happy
as the day is long. There's nothing like having an
aim in life to take your mind off silly brooding, is
there ? I guess that's why women make their lives
much more unhappy than men as a rule; they live too
much on their emotions, because they haven't anything
beyond their feelings to think about. Men have, when
they are at work. Except in very special moments of
grief, they absorb themselves in it and forget their
troubles, and so, when they have to face them again,
their mind comes to them refreshed and stronger, able
to bear them.

What women ought to do when they are suffering
from a broken heart is get some work they've just got
to do— not a hobby you can neglect when you feel bad,
but something you've got to carry through and keep
a good face over, even if you feel every minute you'll
burst out crying. You won't really, and you'll be
amazed to find how- much smaller your grief seems
when you get back to it. Besides, half the time you
will be too tired and sleepy when you've finished work
to want to think at all. And that helps, too.

Why, I want to get up and dance sometimes, I feel
so gloriously happy. I don't believe Terry or Nev or
anybody else could ever make me unhappy again. I've
found the thing I can do, and that I want to do, and
it's the most wonderful feeling on earth. Oh, achieve-
ment is more satisfying than love. At least, I think so
now. Maybe I won't some day again, but just at
present I feel I can't be bothered with men. I can't
take a real interest in anything but my coconuts.

And in my natives. They are so amusing; and I'm
their doctor and storekeeper and chief magistrate and

220 The Coconut Planter

final court of appeal, as Avell as work boss. It's so
funny at times — especially when they want medicines.
Some of them adore taking medicines; they seem to
think there's something dignified and classy about it,
and work up complaints for the joy of having to swallow
a pill or two. They go off with the most complacent
expressions.

I don't know what I should do if any of them got
really ill. I suppose I should fly straight in for Dr.
Ross, for I haven't the ghost of an idea what half my
bottles are for. But I don't think any of them have
had anything worse than a stomach-ache so far. They
will overeat. You should just see me, though; I'm as
severe as a judge when they sidle up. I fix them with
a stern gaze and demand :

"What name you feel bad?"

And the reply is more or less a variation of, "Belly
belong me feel bad inside, boss; he heave up."

I'm getting used to the formula now; it just means
they feel sick. But the first time I nearly collapsed on
the doorstep. Anyway, I just hand them out a packet
of Epsom salts or something that, at any rate, can't
do them much harm, whether they have a real com-
plaint or not. And the "not," as I've explained, is
just as likely.

They are funny creatures to deal with. I'm getting
used to them now, but they have such wriggly minds.
For instance, if you want to know who a native is
you've always got to ask precisely what is his name,
If you say to him "Oi dai-ka," which is Motuan for
"Who are you?" he merely replies "Lau," which
means "me." Lucid, isn't it?

I didn't find that out till I'd said "Oi dai-ka" to
about six in succession, and when I found they all
answered to "Lau" I began to think there must be a
kink somewhere. You see, a lot of my boys have been

The Coconut Planter 221

recruited from the south-east, and most of them speak
Motuan, which is just one of the half-hundred dialects
of Papua, so I've got a tiny grammar, and I'm trying
to learn a little to eke out my pidgin English.

Mr. Ferguson advises it. It comes in useful, though
it is not essential. Everyone speaks enough pidgin
English to get on with, even Frenchmen and Germans
who own natives talk to them in it. It's the universal
esperanto of the north.

The only thing that is vexing me just now is Billy.
I'd like to shake him. I wish to goodness he'd stop
fancying Nev and I are in love with each other. He
does, though, and you simply can't get the idea out of
his head. To-day it only amuses me because I feel so
gay and heartfree, and don't care a cuss for anything,
but sometimes it makes me cross. I suppose because —
well, I suppose, if I wanted to be an idiot I could. No,
I'm not going to be fool enough to let myself love a
second man after the little lesson the first gave me. It
w^ould be flying in the face of Providence and
common sense alike.

But what amuses me most of all is Billy is so sure
Nev loves me. I know he does a bit, but I also know
it doesn't go very deep. He doesn't love me enough
to endure poverty with me. It's all very well to say he
w^ouldn't like me to be poor; Nev couldn't stand it
himself — he's a young man of extravagant tastes, and
love would soon fly out of the window if he had to
curtail any of his pet expenses. In fact, I'm not positive
he'd marry me even if he were well enough off; he
thinks he would, but when it came to the point . . .
theorising about a thing beforehand is different.

How terribly clear-headed I am to-night. I feel like
a calculating machine that can sit back and size up
everyone else's emotions without feeling one little
tremor itself. Hard work must be changing my nature

o

222 The Coconut Planter

surely arid making me very practical and cool-headed,
for I never used to be like that. At least, I never knew
I was. Maybe, it hadn't had a chance to develop.
However, I suppose I can't deny sentiment for ever,
and my bad turn will come one of these days like it
does to everyone else.

But I don't want it yet awhile — I don't. Oh, Fate,
do leave me alone for a bit ! Let things stay as they
are ! I'm so happy and contented with my work and
friends, and everything is going so splendidly. Do
keep love and everything to do with it right away for a
little while longer. Let me forget I'm a girl and be
just a coconut planter I

I believe it was because I objected to having my
serenity ruffled that I could have smacked Billy when
he started talking like he^did this afternoon. He tyrned
up just as Mr. Ferguson -sj^as leaving ; he said he wlmted
to finish another chair he%as in the middle of, add he
worked at it so late he staged for kaikai with me" and
has only just gone. "

It was while we were sitting on the veranda, watch-
ing the moon flood out the east with saffron, and listen-
ing to Meva padding barefooted about rattling the
plates. Everything was even quieter than usual, and
the scent of some pawpaw trees that are growing almost
at my front door was very strong.

PaM^paws, you know, are two kinds of trees, male
and female, and the way they grow is, generally
there's one male tree and the female ones all cluster
round it, bending up and intertwining about it like an
adoring court. And while we sniffed their odour, two
huge black-barred moths came circling above our heads,
dancing and coquetting in curves that would turn an
aviator dizzy; and then it was Billy broke the silence.

"It's funny," he said, "how everything in the world
is sort of dependent on something else, isn't it? The

The Coconut Planter 223

way your life is mixed up with someone else's, however
much you want to keep it to yourself ? "

"How do you mean, Billy?" I asked, puzzled.

"I don't know. I suppose it was those pawpaws
made me think of it and the moths. They have to feel
somehow about each other, you'd think. It seems queer
the way you want one person more than anyone else
and — you know what 1 mean, Cynthia."

Billy calls me Cynthia now like Adelaide. He asked
if he might in his formal little way. He said it made
him feel such an outsider when all the rest called me
Sunny to have to say Miss Shale. Of course, I said he
might at once. I wonder why he didn't say Sunny like
the rest. I believe he thinks that would be too intimate
of him; he has the nicest feelings about little things.

"You do see what I mean, don't you, Cynthia? " he
now repeated.

"Why, yes, Billy," I said, "I think I do. Yes, I
suppose it is funny. The whole world's funny though,
if you start picking it to pieces." .

Billy said nothing awhile^ so I started to tell him
how the clearing was getting on. I'm so interested I'm
afraid I shall become a bore to my friends if I'm not
careful. I forget it isn't their plantation. Billy seemed
to be listening, but, when I paused, his next remark
showed his brain hadn't been entirely occupied with
my descriptions.

"Will you keep on with it when you get married?"
he said, "or will you have a manager?"

"Get married!" I blankly echoed. "Whoever put
that idea into your head?"

"Nobody," said Billy; "but I guess you will some
day, won't you? Most girls do."

"I'm not most girls," I snapped. "And I don't want
to talk about it."

"I guess," said Billy, with one of his Slashes of

224 The Coconut Planter

shrewdness, "that's because you feel, at the back of
your mind, you've got to."

"Nonsense!" I said, really cross. But Billy was
not convinced. He shook his head.

"Oh, no, it isn't," he said; "but it might be worse.
I'll still be able to see you often. He won't mind me."

"He!" I repeated, feeling my ears get hot for no
reason at all. "Who on earth is ' he ' ? "

"Oh, g'wan," Billy scoffed.

" I suppose you mean Nevil ? " I said, with as much
dignity as I could muster up at such a short notice.
"Really, Billy, it's downright absurd of you. There's
nothing of that sort between us. Nev is just the same
to me as you are."

Billy smiled a little. "The same," he repeated, and
leant towards me. "Do you want me to believe I can
make you feel like Nev does — that I can make you
afraid of me ? "

"Don't be absurd, Billy," I said. "I'm not afraid
of Nev."

"Oh, yes, you are," Billy said positively; "and
that's why I expect you'll marry him."

"Billy! " I fairly stamped my foot. "I shall not
marry him. Do you hear? And, anyway, you perfect
goose, he wouldn't marry me; he doesn't care enough
for that."

"That," said Billy, "is where I know more than
you. But I expect you're only pretending; you know
all right yourself. Do you think I didn't know what
he felt like those days you'd quarrelled, when I used
to come up and see you and he couldn't? Why, he
was hardly fit to live with. Ah, well, I've had an
innings, even if it was a short one. That's something
to remember."

I simply looked at him. That's the first time Billy's
ever referred to my break with Nev, and for a minute

The Coconut Planter 225

I was too dumbfounded to speak. Evidently, like the
famous parrot again, which he seems to resemble, he's
been doing some quiet thinking. We argued a little
further; but there's no shaking his conviction that
heaven means us for each other.

Really, it's too absurd to be cross about. I wonder
where my darling Alicky is? I must rout him out
and take him to bed with me. Oh, dear, there he is
on the veranda, playing with a lizard. He will be
cross if I take him away. Mick thinks life is just bliss
when he can get a lizard to play with. He seems to
find them much more amusing than mice — I believe
because, in his heart, he's a tiny bit scared of them.
The things we fear are always the most fascinating.

But how did Billy discover that at his age?

CHAPTER XXXVII

I SPENT this week-end in Kulumadau with Bee and
Adelaide. It was lovely to be with them again. When
thev go back home I shall miss them. It's strange that
you can go twenty-three years through life without
knowing that people existed and then mind awfully
because you may never see them again. However, they
are not going for a few months yet, so it's early days
to start worrying.

Nev came for me and escorted me in. Really those
boys do spoil me; I shall begin to depend on them
soon if I'm not careful, and that's a thing I've vowed
I won't do. I'm going to look after myself. Still, it
was nice to have him carry Micky; he weighs quite a
lot.

I took Micky with me in a basket. Meva said he
would feed him, but I was afraid he might forget.
Besides, Micky might have got lonely or, perhaps,
have tried to play with a snake instead of a lizard, and
I couldn't bear to lose him now.

He's such a darling; I grow fonder of him every
day. This minute he's lying out in the sun yawning
and stretching, and blinking at me every now and
then to coax me to go and tickle him. He's most un-
natural in some ways — not like a cat at all; he's more
like a dog. He's the dirtiest limb, whereas most cats
are so particular about their toilet. Details like that
don't bother Micky; he hardly ever washes; he gives
himself a perfunctory lick when he seems to think of it,
and that's not often, but he finds dirt such a grand

22G

The Coconut Planter 227

thing to lie and kick in that, if he tried to clean off all
that settles in his coat he'd die of indigestion.

Mick fairly loves dirt; he rolls and kicks in it on his
back just like a dog and, like one, too, he loves you
to rub him with your shoe and prod him gently; and
he'll even let you pull his ears and whiskers without
a protest. And, when he's got nice and dirty, he
likes to clamber up my skirt unaided and perch on my
shoulder.

Really he's the quaintest cat and the most shameless
little smooge, and it isn't, as with most cats, that he
wants food. He never miaows when he's hungry. He
just comes and sits down in a patient manner near
wherever I am and looks at me, and if I get up he
follows me about in a pointed manner. Sometimes I've
kept him waiting to tease him and see what he would
do, but Mick never loses his manners. He merely
follows on and on with persistent silent pointedness till
I burst out laughing and, with a hug, rout him out
some milk or meat.

So in to Kulumadau he went with Nev and me,
while a native on ahead carried my suitcase. We must
have looked a picturesque procession, but of one thing
I'm sure, my boy was the most comfortable of the three.
Sometimes I sympathise with Bee. I wish it was
decent to appear in a rami.

Another thing I've found out is Nev didn't bring
Micky because I said I'd like a pet. He thought of it
himself; he had ordered him weeks before. As soon
as he knew the cat was going to have kittens he
ordered one from the woman who owned it ; and that
was while we were not speaking.

You can't guess how pleased I was to find out.
You see, it shows I was right and Nev did think about
me in spite of his trying to appear indifferent. I don't
believe he was really cross for more than the first couple

228 The Coconut Planter

of days. He's admitted it. I asked him why he
wouldn't speak then and he sidestepped my question,
but at last he said :

"Well, I'd got to know you better than I should
have under the circumstances, and I thought it a good
chance for dropping you altogether since it couldn't be
the other thing."

"Well," I said, "what did you make it up again for
if you thought it better not? Why didn't you leave
me dropped ? "

Nev laughed shortly. "Haven't you read some-
where that * I said in my haste, all men are fools.'"

"It's liars, not fools," I corrected.

"They're generally both," said Nev. And he
wouldn't say another word ; he started talking about the
mine.

He is different lately; he is quieter a little, and
doesn't say such rude things. I mean, he jokes very
little about me and his feelings. Sometimes I think
I'm glad, and other times — I'm not sure. At least, I
could guess then what he didn't feel, if I couldn't guess
what he felt. And I don't like being entirely in the
dark as I am now.

Anyway, I had the loveliest week-end. Adelaide
plaintively said she wished I could come back to
manage Nessi and Lobi for her ; they get her completely
puzzled. You see, you want to be pretty versatile, for,
simple as you make your speech, what one native will
grasp another won't, and then you have to think out
another way to put it. It is too comic to hear Adelaide
conversing with them; she manages to make it sound
like baby talk. She has to do the housekeeping always,
as Bee gets too absorbed in her writing to be bothered
with such mundane details as food and cooking.

She is very pleased with all the material she is
gathering, and reckons she is going to make quite a

The Coconut Planter 229

hit with her book. It's wonderful what a memory she
has for funny happenings. I forget all about them as
soon as they are over, but down they go in Bee's
notebook or brain, and in one they seem as safe as in
the other.

Lobi supplied her with a good joke the other day.
The Morinda was in again, and her cook let several
folks in Woodlark have some of his sausages. It's a
treat they don't often get, and apparently Lobi had
never seen them before. His face was a study as
Adelaide unwrapped them and put them on a plate to
go in the safe, and finally, when her back was turned,
we saw him gingerly poke one with his finger; and then
he could restrain himself no longer.

"My word, Sinuabada," he exclaimed, "bananas all
same bullimacow."

It was rather a cute observation, wasn't it? Bee is
terribly pleased with it, anyway. She says it is things
like that, really everyday happenings, that are interest-
ing to the rest of the world who have never seen that
particular kind of life. We all love to find out how
the other half of us live.

Dolly came up on Sunday afternoon and, as usual,
kept us all under the spell of her giggles. Something
funny always seems to be happening to Dolly unless
it is just that, no matter what happens, she can see
something funny in it. I dare say it's that, but it's a
gift, like music or painting, and I suppose you can't
learn it unless the talent's there to start with.

What amused her this time was the death of a
workman up here. Not his death — I didn't mean that,
but what happened after it. His small son came to
Carfews' and asked would they give him some flowers
for muvver to put on him. Dolly, of course, sent a
heap of frangipanis and white jacaranda and things,
and, after an interval, the small boy reappeared bearing

230 The Coconut Planter

a message of thanks and wouldn't the ladies like to
come and see farver now he was laid out.

"I said no firmly and hastily," Dolly told us, "but
the small boy didn't seem to grasp the cause of my
reluctance. ' Do come, miss,' he urged, ' you'd enjoy
it; farver 'e do look so tasty wiv the flowers all eroun'
'im.'

"But," said Dolly, "I firmly repressed my cannibal
inclinations and stayed at home."

But, although she chatted nonsense like this all the
time, I could tell she was not at her ease. There was a
touch of defiance in her gaiety as if she challenged us
to hint to her she wasn't as happy as she seemed. She
told me briefly that she'd had a bit of a fuss at home
when I asked her what was up. She didn't say what
about, but I suppose it was Mr. Erskine. It wouldn't
be the first.

Really, I don't wonder the Carfews object to him,
but, even if it is presumptuous of me to criticise, I
don't think they are wise to take the stand they are
doing about it ; Dolly is very spoiled and not used to
being thwarted ; it might easily drive her to do some-
thing foolish. But I suppose, like most parents, they
don't realise she's not still a little girl who can be
made to see that her parents know best by just telling
her so. Dolly has a great opinion of her own judg-
ment.

I'm sorry about it. I feel I'd like to tell the Carfews
they are taking the wrong line with her, but, of course,
she'd be mad with me if I interfered between her and
her parents, and, anyway, it would be cheek ; but I saw
her talking to him again this morning as I left to come
back here. I suppose they didn't expect anyone to be
about so early, for they both started when they saw
me. That doesn't look like daughterly obedience, at
five in the morning, does it? Still, he's going away

The Coconut Planter 231

again with the Survey this afternoon ; that's some
comfort. The worst is, he'll soon be back again.

I saw Mrs. Carlyle again this visit. She came
round Sunday afternoon to visit Bee and Adelaide ; she
brought her old aunt with her and, to avoid having to
talk to my loving enemy, I devoted myself to the aunt.
And — do you know ? — I found under her dried nervous
manner that she is rather a dear old thing. She is
like Adelaide, or rather what Adelaide might have been
if she'd been snubbed and sat on and made a convenience
for other people all her life.

You can see that is what has happened to poor little
Miss Brough; she's been shuttlecocked about between
any members of her family who'd be bothered with her
for the time. She, you see, was born in the days when
it wasn't decent for a girl to strike out for herself. I'm
glad I wasn't born then. These are lucky days for
women, aren't they?

Poor little Miss Brough, she brightened up wonder-
fully when I tried to draw her out. I could shake
myself for not having been nice to her on the boat.
I might have made it so much pleasanter for her. She's
really an old dear, but she looked such a dried-up, dull
little thing, and then — she was my enemy's aunt, and I
thought I'd leave well alone.

But I'm sorry now. I shall be very nice to her
whenever we meet. You can see she's not used to
niceness even from women, for she was quite patheti-
cally grateful. In fact, she made me feel a real pig to
think what her life must have been to make her value
so much just common courtesy. I asked her to come
out and see my plantation and my dear little house
sometime if she could walk it, and she quite flushed
up with pleasure.

"Oh, I could walk it," she said. "I am quite strong
although I look so small and old. I am not as old as

232 The Coconut Planter

I look, my dear. But you don't want me to come,
really; you are only being nice to an old woman because
you can't help it."

"But I do want you," I said, by now quite con-
vinced I did. "Truly I do, Miss Brough. Mr. Close
or Mr. Burroughs shall bring you out one day when
they come. I'll arrange it. For I don't think," I
added, feeling a little awkward, "that Mrs. Carlyle
would care to come with you."

And then, for the first time, almost a twinkle came
into her faded eyes. "No," she agreed, "I don't think
so. Helen is very busy just now getting her house
to her liking. But, if either of the gentlemen you
mentioned will escort me, I should so much care to
come and see your house. I think it so wonderful of
you," she added wistfully; "you must be very brave."

"I'm not, indeed," I laughed; "I'm a terrible
coward really, but there's so little to be afraid of in
what I'm doing."

"Ah, no, you are brave," she insisted. "I am not
brave. I have always been frightened of things and
people. Yes, Helen," as she caught an imperious nod
from Mrs. Carlyle, "I'm coming at once."

She trotted meekly away.

Poor dear little old soul ! She shall come out to
see me as soon as we can fix it. To think if I had
lived a hundred years earlier, and had had to depend
on the crumbs my relations threw me ! Not for mine,
thank you.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Oh, Fate is a beast ! I asked her to leave me alone
and let me forget I was a girl for a while. But she
won't; she rubs it in every chance she gets; and Nev
did to-night, too. Oh, dear, life is hateful ; and I w^as
just beginning to enjoy it again.

Nev and Billy came out this afternoon. They
generally do on Saturdays, if I don't go in to Kulu-
madau. I wanted them to bring little old Miss Brough
out with them to-day, but Mrs. Carlyle wanted her for
something and wouldn't let her come. I believe she
did it on purpose; she doesn't want Miss Brough to
get too friendly with me. I think it's just like her
hatefulness, when the poor old thing likes me and
I could help to make her happy a little. And if
she'd come, Nev wouldn't have been able to say what
he did.

It wasn't till just before they were going, either.
We'd had the jolliest day. We strolled about my
ground before kaikai, and I show'ed them how much
was cleared and where the limbs were all lopped tidily
off and piled together in heaps getting dry for the first
burn ; and then we went down to my nursery, where
one or two shoots are beginning to poke themselves out
in the most inquisitive, delightful way. They didn't
say anything much, but just nodded approval, as men
do; but once or twice Nev looked at me the way he
did the day he told me I had grit.

We had fun at kaikai, too. Meva waited on us, a
friendly shadow, grinning openly wherever he could

233

234 The Coconut Planter

follow a joke. He was deeply interested when the boys
drank my health and said "good luck" over their
glasses. Finally he took a hand in the conversation.

"Taubada," he said to Nev, "when you kaikai kero-
sine, why you say ' woodluck ' ? "

"I no say 'woodluck,'" Nev replied. (That's the
way the natives pronounce "Woodlark.") "I say ' good
luck.' "

"All same name," was Meva's superior reply.
" More better you say Samarai ! Samarai ! He good
place ; woodluck he no good."

We had to laugh. It was evident Meva can think
things out, after all. I've got to doubting it once or
twice lately, especially after the rice pudding episode.
Meva makes a very nice rice pudding. Mrs. Carfew
has taught him well. But a few days ago I thought
for variety I'd like it with more custard on the top
instead of well mixed in as he made it ; so, just as I
was starting off to work, I told him to put the rice
in the bottom of the dish and pour the milk and eggs
gently over the top. That, you see, would make the
custard. And what do you think he set before me when
I got home ? The rice was there all right, and the
milk was there, and floating peacefully on top of the
milk were four hard-baked eggs. I only laughed.
There was nothing else to do.

After dinner we took a rug outside, and Billy lay
on it on the ground, while Nev and I sat on my
bamboo lounge, which is another of Billy's successes.
We didn't talk very much. The boys smoked, and we
all watched the fireflies drifting in and out of the tree
shadows. I think "drifting" is the only word that
seems to describe fireflies — they appear and disappear
with such languid suddenness.

The only thing that came to disturb us was a
wallaby, that once, misled by our stillness, thought the

The Coconut Planter 235

clearing was deserted. When he discovered his mis-
take he vanished as silently as he had come.

"Look at him," said Nev, as the creature fled. "It's
like a touch of home, isn't it? Who'd like to be down
in dear old New South to-night? "

"Oh, shut up," said Billy, and mentally I echoed
his adjuration. It does make one homesick to talk about
it when the sky is so pale it's almost blue, and the
same old Southern Cross comes dimly out like drops of
milk.

Then Billy said it was time they started for home,
and went round the back to light the lanterns and
collect Dolly's coat, which she had forgotten last time
she was out, and which I wanted him to return for me.

After he had gone Nev didn't say anything for a
bit. So, feeling a little piqued that he was wasting
the few minutes we had alone, I said :

"Well, you haven't told me what you think of the
way my plantation is progressing, Nev."

And then, quite abruptly, Nev sat up. "It's what
I'm thinking about," he said. "Thinking of the way we
leave you here alone — leave you to the bush and niggers
and silence. How long do you reckon you can stand
it. Sunny ? "

"Till I can afford not to," I replied.

"And when will that be?"

"In ten or twelve years' time, perhaps," I replied
composedly. "My trees ought to be bearing decently
by then. If I stick to work steadily till then I may
be able to afford a manager — at any rate, for a time —
while I take an occasional holiday."

"And then?" said Nev.

"Oh, then I'll take a holiday," I repeated. "I'll sec
the world a bit. I'm frightfully keen to go to America
for one. I shan't be so very much over thirty, and, if
I take care of myself, I shan't be too old or ugly to

236 The Coconut Planter

enjoy it. I know I shan't be rich, but I don't mind
as long as I make enough to live on. Meanwhile,
people here are awfully kind, and it's an interesting
life."

"You call vegetating here life?"

"There's worse things than vegetating," I replied,
as I thought of the past, "especially in surroundings
like this. I've never been so happy before."

"You won't do it," said Nev, after a pause. "You'll
marry. You're not the kind of girl can live without
men."

"Maybe," I replied. "But I should imagine some
men are easier to live without than with."

Nev gazed at me searchingly for a minute and then
laughed. '' Touche ! " he said. "Ought I to apologise?
Don't mind anything I say to-night, Sunny. I'm in a
rotten temper, I hate everything in this blasted old
country. I'd clear out of it by to-morrow's boat if
there was one, which there isn't, and won't be for
another week, and by that time I expect I'll have cooled
down. But to-night, Sunny, I just hanker for civilisa-
tion. I want to be in Sydney. I want to see a tram."

I almost laughed at his anti-climax, but when I
looked at his face I didn't. I touched his hand sympa-
thetically, and he gave mine an answering squeeze and
then dropped it. He is keeping honestly to the
compact.

"Yes, I want to see a tram," he went on. "Shut
your eyes. Sunny, and see one now hurling itself down
Pitt Street, a noisy, glary juggernaut, every now and
then disgorging people out of its jaws — girls and men.
Fellows taking their girls to the pictures, others off to
the Criterion with the one and only ; the chap who
means business escorting Gwendoline to grand opera at
the Royal, and all of them laughing and with pretty
cloaks and dancing eyes, and the soft scent of the

The Coconut Planter 237

powder on their necks making the fellows bend closer
as they talk, unconscious that they do so. Oh, Sunny,
I want to be back there among it all ; I want to be
there to-night — with you."

"But it's beautiful here, Nev," I said, as I gazed
up at the velvet softness of the sky, against which the
trees outlined themselves in patterned brocade.

He shifted impatiently. "Oh, it's well enough," he
said, "but I've got the hunger of the city on me
to-night. We all get it at times when we realise how
far away we are from the centre of things. It's only a
mood, if I could go to-night on the Magic Carpet of
Eastern tales, I'd come back to-morrow, and be glad to
come. I got awfully sick of it last time I was down in
Sydney; it's only the cussed nature of the brute. But
I want to be there to-night — with you."

"Well, pretend we are," I said to humour him.

"You'll have to let me hold your hand, then," he
said, with a return of his old half-laughing bullying,
"if you want to make it real. You see, we're in a taxi
going off to a play by ourselves, and I know that in the
dimness of a taxi I should have at least your little
finger. Come, Sunny, play the game. It's only a
game, you know."

"Well," I hesitated, laughing, "I oughtn't, Nev.
It's nearly breaking bonds, but — well, as we're in
Sydney among all the people and in a taxi, you may
have three fingers."

"Right," said Nev, "three fingers is better than a
cold shoulder. Well, we're nearly there, Sunny. My
word, isn't it a frosty night? Are you sure you won't
be cold in that absurd bit of a wrap ? "

"I shan't be when we get inside," I answered, with
a giggle. Seeing that the air was like a wet oven, and
two mosquitoes were buzzing determinedly round us, I
envied Nev his imagination.
p

238 The Coconut Planter

" I hope it will be a decent show," he went on
languidly, "the papers spoke well of it. Oh, here we
are; mind the step, dearest "

"Nev, you wouldn't be calling me 'dearest.'"

"Wouldn't I ? " he replied. "When you're looking
as stunning as you are this minute. We're trailing up
the steps to the circle now. Sunny. No, we're having a
box to-night. We're just hanging the expense, for it's
a special occasion. We're celebrating our engagement."

"Nevil!"

"Yes, I don't wonder you're startled. So am I. I
didn't mean to do it. We can neither of us quite
believe it yet. We're expecting to wake up every
minute and find it a dream, but you see, my rich old
uncle has died and left me a nice little sum. So we're
quite unbelievably happy, aren't we. Sunny?" His
voice was slow and caressing.

I laughed shakily. Somehow, as he spoke, it was
the trees and fireflies around us that were unreal; the
dark was just the dark of the theatre, and we were wait-
ing for the curtain to go up.

"You're looking wonderful to-night, Sunny," he
said. "You're wearing a dark peacocky dress that
splashes into blue like your hair; and you've no
jewellery at all but the ring — my ring — and a little
diamond in each ear to gleam with your teeth when you
smile at me — only at me; you've no smiles for others
to-night. Isn't that so, my opal, my black opal?"

"Oh, Nev," I said, trying to draw away my hand;
but he wouldn't let me.

"Oh, the music," he said. "Listen to it — luring and
calling and drawing the heart out of your breast, as
your eyes draw mine. Oh, girl, my girl "

I couldn't move, I couldn't And then footsteps

crunched through the leaves and we saw the outline of
Billy's figure.

The Coconut Planter 239

"Hallo ! " he said. "Are you still here?"

There was a barely perceptible pause before Nev
answered, and then I could hardly believe it was he
speaking, his voice was so indolent.

"Ah, ha! " he said, "I hear feetsteps, as they say
in the panto. Come hither, William. Sunny is play-
ing Circe and turning me into a lazy hog. I feel I
could lie here all night and take root."

"Your metaphors are mixed," I said, laughing to
hide the excitement that shook me from head to foot.
"I must have turned you into a plant if you can take
root, silly."

"AI — m!" Nev agreed in a funny voice, "A poison
weed, eh ? "

"Well, uproot yourself, then," Billy advised. "It's
time we started for home. I've got the lanterns ready.
Coming ? "

"This minute," said Nev. "Farewell, Sinuabada
Cynthia. Kaioon, otherwise good-night. Lead on,
Bill, I follow."

But when Billy had gone round to the kitchen to
collect Dolly's coat, which he had forgotten after all,
Nev said to me :

"Do you know why I always bring Billy with me
when I come ? "

I shook my head and looked at my feet, but I could
feel his gaze in the dark.

"To take me home again," he said bluntly.

Is it very wicked of him to fool like that? But up
here life is so direct and simple you want or you don't
want ; and Society and law seem pale, far-off shapes. I
couldn't feel a bit insulted or even offended. Maybe I

should have. But, you see, he loves me, and I

Oh, God, is it love, too? And perhaps Terry is alive.

How awful life is !

CHAPTER XXXIX

Little Miss Brough has been out to see me at last.
Billy brought her to-day, and she was so excited about
it that she almost made me excited too. She arrived
in a flutter, looking the quaintest little figure. You see,
she's been wearing those small, old-fashioned bonnets
for years, and they are out of the question up here, and
she can't get used to a hat.

She doesn't seem able to keep one on ; it is generally
dipping over one ear at an angle that, in conjunction
with her small, wizened face and frightened eyes, makes
her look most comically rakish. But she looked much
younger than I have ever seen her look before ; perhaps
it was because to-day she had on grey crash instead
of the black she usually wears, and, with a small panama
on the top of her little head — why, it took years off
her age. What a lot of difference dress does make to
a woman 1

I took off my working togs, as I always do on
Saturday afternoons, and put on a white frock in her
honour. I only wear white frocks now oh special
occasions, as you can only wear them once in this
climate, and I have to send them all the way into Kulu-
madau to be washed and ironed, and I can't afford to
run up huge laundry bills.

Meva has tried his hand at frocks; but he's never
worked for a woman before, and ironing doesn't seem
to be his strong point — not fine ironing, anyway. I
let him practise on my linens; he can't tear those very

240

The Coconut Planter 241

easily; but I only let him try a muslin once. You
should have seen it !

And so I have to be careful of my wardrobe.

But I wanted little Miss Brough to feel she was an
important guest, and I really believe I gave her that
impression. She got quite deprecatingly gay once or
twice, and forgot even to be nervous. She admired
my dress, too, and told me I looked as beautiful as I
was good, and then it was my turn to feel embarrassed.
I called hastily for Meva, who appeared in the doorway,
putting the last touches to his coiffure in the shape of
a big hibiscus stolen from my bush.

"What name you sing out?" he inquired.

"Tea," I said, to cover my confusion. "Kaikai, and
hurry up about it."

" You say you no kaikai till 'nother fellow taubada
he catch him place here," Meva reminded me reproach-
fully.

I had told him to wait till Nev came before having
afternoon tea, for I thought he'd be sure to come as
usual. But it was after live now, and I was beginning
to feel piqued, which, I suppose, was why I answered
Meva rather sharply, the more so because of the quick
glance — I saw it out of the corner of my eye — that
Billy gave me when Meva said I'd told him to wait.

"Well, I feel 'nother kind inside now," I said,
using the native way of saying I'd changed my mind.
"You make him ready now quick time. Hurry up, or
I wild like hell ! "

Meva fled, and I turned apologetically to Miss
Brough, who was watching me in mingled shock and
awe. "Please don't be horrified," I said. "It sounds
dreadful language, doesn't it? But I've simply had
to learn to use it. They're accustomed to being talked
to like that, and if I didn't, too, and make them jump,
I'd never get a hand's turn done on the place. But

242 The Coconut Planter

I don't like really to swear, so I invent all kinds of
epithets for them that sound imposing. I always call
Meva a walking bottle-brush when I'm annoyed with
him; he doesn't know what it means, but it reduces
him to instant submission. ' Wild like hell ' only equals
* very cross,' you know; but if I said ' very cross ' to
Meva it wouldn't convey anything at all."

A faint smile struggled up through the dismay on
Miss Brough's face. "Oh, I'm sure you have to," she
agreed loyally. "It is wonderful of you, everything is
wonderful. I wish I were like you; but I am not
brave enough. I never was brave," she ended plain-
tively.

I smiled. You could see she never was. Poor little
Miss Brough — she's one of those women who are as
gentle as dew. If she had married some man who had
will enough for both, and yet would have been kind to
her, she would have made a devoted wife; she'd have
thought everything he did wonderful and right. Now,
I could never do that. I'm too pig-headed, as Nev tells
me when he's cross. What some man has missed in
not marrying Miss Brough ! Dear little old thing !

But when she was going her nervousness returned.
"I have enjoyed myself so much, dear Miss Shale," she
said; "so very, very much. It has been one of the
afternoons of my life. It was just like you to bother
with an old woman who is in everybody's way."

"What nonsense," I said. "Why, I loved to have
you."

"That's the wonderful part," she said, as shy as a
little girl; "you made me quite believe it some of the
time."

"Well, you go on believing it," I said, bending
down to kiss her, "and show you do by coming again
quite soon."

"Oh, may I ? " she said, flushing right up. "And —

The Coconut Planter 243

and may I kiss you back ? And please," she thrust a
small parcel into my hand, "let me give you these. I
made them for you and thought of you in every stitch.
I hope they will be useful, and please don't open them
till I'm gone."

She trotted away with Billy, looking in the fading
light like a Diirer drawing of a fairy godmother, bent
and grey and yet sprightly. They looked a quaint pair
as the forest swallowed them up round the bend; Billy
ahead, turning every now and then to help her up or
down a little rise in the path, and she trotting meekly
at his heels.

When she had gone I opened the parcel. It con-
tained three of the daintiest d'oyleys anyone could wish
to see. One was all in Irish crochet. Miss Brough
works exquisitely. And to think of her putting baby
Irish on a d'oyley ! And for me !

The dear, sweet old thing.

CHAPTER XL

Billy worried me rather on Saturday. I thought I
wouldn't say anything about it, and that I'd think it
was only my imagination next day. But I don't.
To-day I can't get it out of my head. It seems more
significant than ever, especially as Nev didn't come out
yesterday either.

I believe it must be he can't trust himself with me
after the way we talked last week, and thinks the only
thing to do is to keep away; but I don't want him to
keep away. I missed him this week-end quite dread-
fully, and I was quite disagreeable to Billy once or
twice because I felt so horrid and disappointed. I'm
glad Dr. Ross and Dolly came out, too, or he would
have had a very bad time and I should have had to
feel worse ashamed of myself than I do now. As it
was, I don't believe he noticed anything the matter —
although I wouldn't be sure; he is terribly observant
under his quiet.

Of course, I didn't ask him where Nev was, and he
didn't volunteer any information about him, which
proves it wasn't a lything important keeping him, and
that he could have come if he had wanted to. At least,
I know he wanted to, but I suppose he feels it wiser to
keep apart. I suppose it is, too, but — why is life so
hard ?

I don't want to marry Nev. I don't want to marry
anybody again, but I like him so much and I like being
with him and talking to him. Why can't he be satis-
fied with that, the same as me? Men are so selfish.

244

The Coconut Planter 245

Because he can't marry me, he's going to avoid me
altogether, it seems. My feelings in the matter are
taken for granted. I shall agree to whatever he thinks
best.

Well, I shan't. I'm not one of the meek, adoring
sort like Miss Brough. I shan't let him go like this.
I want him to stay my friend. He shall not give me up.

There now, I feel heaps better. There's nothing
like having a fit of temper all by yourself; it does you
a world of good and doesn't hurt anyone else.

All the same, I'll show him.

And I'm worried, too, about what Billy said. At
least, not quite so much what he said as didn't say —
half hinted, or, at any rate, made me understand he
meant. All he really said was :

"Nev is taking a long time to get away, don't you
think ? I thought he'd have gone last week."

"But I thought you said he was waiting for some
special native," I said, startled out of my abstraction.
I had been throwing pebbles at a baby lizard that sat
stolidly on, merely blinking its eyes, as much as to say,
"Keep it up, you'll get tired before I will." I was
thinking about Nev myself, which was what startled me
when Billy spoke.

He looked quietly at me and then looked away.
"The fellow has been in for over a week now," he said.
"That's why I was expecting Nev to go."

"Perhaps he hasn't got all his stores yet or his
carriers," I suggested.

"No," said Billy; "and he doesn't seem to be
starting to get them either."

I sat up and stopped throwing stones. Dolly's voice
was coming nearer. She and Dr. Ross had been for a
walk to see how my nursery was progressing. "Billy,"
I said, "what do you mean? Why do you tell me
this?"

246 The Coconut Planter

"Oh," said Billy slowly, "I thought you ought to
know."

"Why?" I insisted. "What's it to do with
me?"

"I don't know that it has anything," Billy replied,
"but when a fellow has been planning for months and
months to do a certain job, and when the job is looking
for a man who used to be more to him than anyone
else in the world — well," he began to knock the ashes
out of his pipe, "it looks queer, doesn't it? "

"But what has changing Nev's plans, if he has
changed them, to do with me?" I demanded, the more
shortly because I was beginning to feel uncomfortable
under Billy's calm scrutiny.

"I don't know," he repeated, "but I thought you
might."

I was silent, and I could not meet his gaze. I hated
myself for it, but I couldn't. His eyes are so honest.
And if Nev was wavering in his determination of going
to find Terry — I knew he was jealous of him, but surely
even jealousy couldn't work that change in men's
friendship.

"I see," said Billy after a short pause, "that you do
know."

And then the others came up and we talked of
indifferent matters.

But I suppose I shall have to talk to Nev about it
now. Billy didn't tell me to, but I know that's what
he meant, and it's the only square thing to do. Nev
meant to look for Terry before he met me and, if it is
I who have changed him, I must tell him to go. Who
would have believed it could ever turn out like this —
that I should be the one to spur him on to go when, if
he finds him, it will put my life in ruins again? And
I have begun to feel as if he will find him, as if the
miracle will happen. I don't know whether Nev has

The Coconut Planter 247

infected me with his own belief or whether it's a
premonition.

Oh, why must he go ? Why need anyone ever have
doubted that Terry died ? And I am to send him out.
I must drag down my happiness with my own hands —
that's the cruel part of it ! What a laugh Fate must be
getting out of me. Oh, it's cruel, cruel, but I've got
to do it. It's the only square thing.

Ah, well, I can't see him before next week-end very
well, unless he comes out, and I don't suppose he will,
as he seems to w^ant to avoid me. I'll ask him then.

And now — oh, I must not think about it, only

And one little week ago I was as happy as could be.

CHAPTER XLI

I WENT in to Bee and Adelaide this week-end so that I
could get a chance to talk to Nev ; but at first I didn't
think I was going to get one, there was such a crowd
there the whole time. But early Sunday morning he
came round and asked me would I go for a row with
him in the evening. He said I'd never seen the sea on
a moonless night, like this would be, when it is alive
with phosphorus.

It seemed strange that he should want to take me
out alone again after avoiding me, but, as I wanted to
see him alone myself, I said I would go. But, to make
sure he really did want me alone, I suggested we ask
Dolly and one of the other men to come too. Nev was
quite positive in his refusal.

"No, I don't want to take anyone else," he said.
"I want to go by our two selves. I've something I
want to talk to you about. Why, it's proper enough if
that's what is worrying you. We'll start about six or
a little before; it won't take us much more than half
an hour to get down, forty minutes if we dawdle, and
even with a long row we can be back before ten."

"Oh, no, it wasn't that at all," I said, secretly
puzzled. "Mrs. Grundy hasn't got an address up here.
It was just "

"What?" said Nev.

"Nothing," I answered.

So he called for me about a quarter to six, and we
went. The sun was too low to be more than pleasant,
and everything was beautiful — being there by our two

248

The Coconut Planter 249

selves and feeling something was going to happen.
The only thing that spoilt it was knowing what I had
to say before we came back.

But I tried not to think about it. We didn't talk
going down; we didn't seem to want to, but his silence
wasn't huffy at all. Every time he helped me where
the path was corduroyed with logs he smiled at me in
the nicest way. Our silence was intimate.

And half-way we stopped and explored the little
cave on the left of the path. You'd never notice it
unless you knew it was there. It looks just like a deep
hole, some animal's burrow, half hidden up with
bracken.

But when you push the greenery aside and step in,
you get into the loveliest bower. It has once been the
bed of a submerged creek that has eaten its way through
boulders and carved them into the most fantastic shapes,
and trees with twisted roots grow down there, and fern,
and there are smooth worn stones of many colours, and
it's quiet and eerie and damp, and suddenly the cave
ends and you come out under the hill into a tiny
valley, where the creek has made a new road for itself,
perhaps after some landslide; and there's a still,
deep pool where the trunks of saplings are mirrored
unmoving.

There was no bird sound, only the low, shady
silence. The beautiful gravity of the place awed us.
We went back not speaking, and it was only when we
got back to the path again that Nev drew a slow breath
and said :

"I never knew it was like that. That's how you
make me feel sometimes."

But after that he grew suddenly gay. He told me
absurd stories for the rest of the way, and, just before
we reached the last bend to Bonagai, I said I was
thirsty. So, as we couldn't see any natives on the

250 The Coconut Planter

path, Nev shinned up some coconut palms that were
growing alongside to get some nuts.

Of course, the trees were not so very tall, but he
went up in the most marvellous way considering he
had boots on and not bare feet to help himself with
like natives have. And he got so dirty. That's the
worst of white suits, isn't it? You can't do a hand's
turn in them without showing it.

But even then we had difficulty. He broke several
nuts off and dropped them down, but they came with
such force that they rebounded from place to place, and
finally dashed over the edge of the path into the small
ravine below, and the others cracked and split so that
all the juice ran out.

However, in the end he managed to get two down
safely, and, with his corkscrew and knife, bored holes
in them so that the liquid would run out, then poured
it into cups which he made of halves of the split coco-
nuts. As they were about three inches thick, you can
guess it wasn't easy to get your lips to them, but the
milk tasted delicious. They were the real proper young
ones with no nut formed at all, and there's no drink
nicer.

Then we cleaned the traces of dissipation and dirt
off us and walked decorously down through the last
piece of croton hedge to the landing-place. Aren't
crotons beautiful things? It seems so out of place to
see leaves crimson and black instead of green, but it's
a beautiful combination.

The path, too, was littered with kernels of all sorts
and cocoa beans. Woodlark is a great nesting-place.
There is one huge eucalyptus near the path that they
say, in the season, holds hundreds of nests; and the
birds must come from a long way, for there is no
cocoa growing on Woodlark to anyone's knowledge, or
on any of the islands near; they must bring them from

The Coconut Planter 251

the mainland, and that is nearly two hundred miles
distant. That's what one person told me, but then
another said they were nutmegs, not cocoa beans at all ;
so what are you to believe ?

The water policeman was sitting on the inch of a
wharf smoking, with his two kiddies beside him. As
their papa is in Government employ they denoted their
dignity by wearing clothes. They each sported a frock
of blue print, but they didn't look nearly as picturesque
as the children of the boatboys who w^ere playing round
the fire. They wore beads.

Nev went into the shed of galvanised iron that is
by the water's edge, where the boys were all inside
having a smoking party — there are about a dozen of
them belonging to Mr. Carrier. He told them to get
out a small rowboat. In two or three minutes they
appeared carrying it on their shoulders, and in another
minute they had her launched and the rowlocks and
oars ready. Two of them prepared to step in, but to
their surprise Nev said he didn't want them. It
evidently gave them a shock, the idea of a white man
w^orking on a hot night.

It gave me a shock, too, if Nev didn't want even a
native to hear what he had to say to me. Generally we
take no more notice of them than if they were animals
about the place. However, I was just as pleased. I
haven't been up here long enough to have grown quite
unconscious of their presence, though I'm getting
that way.

By this time the sun had quite gone, and the first
grey film of evening was floating over the air. The
creek that winds up to the right of the landing looked
dim and interesting.

"Nev," I said as we drew away, "I wish you'd
take me up the creek some day."

"Some day," Nev agreed. "We can't to-night

252 The Coconut Planter

because the tide is out. We might get stuck anywhere.
Besides, it wouldn't be safe this time of night; it's alive
with alligators. There's one now," he added, as a
faint bellow came across the water.

"Oh, goodness," I shivered, and looked uneasily
over the fast darkening water. "Won't they come
after us here ? Are you sure ? This tiny boat would
be awfully easy to upset, and there'd be heaps
pleasanter deaths."

"Oh, we're safe enough in the open," Nev replied,
"but early morning is the only time to go up the
creek. I was up last Sunday shooting with Fer-
guson."

"Shooting what?"

"Alligators. It's great sport. You pot them as
they lie basking on the banks; sometimes they pot you
instead, which lends it a spice of excitement. But they
have to be pretty hungry to attack you. Most times
they are cowardly brutes."

"Oh, so that's why you didn't come up last Sun-
day? " I said lightly.

"It wasn't," he replied. "I came here because I
didn't want to come up."

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't be silly," said Nev. "You know quite well
you didn't expect me."

I looked at him ; I was surprised at the lightness of
his voice. What had happened to put him in such high
humour? Didn't he care any more? I felt so hurt I
spoke quite coldly.

"I have something to say to you, Nevil," I said.
"It's — it's important."

"It must be when it needs my whole name to lend
it the importance," he replied easily. "And, as I told
you, I've something important to say to you. But
ladies first. Fire away I "

The Coconut Planter 253

"Oh, wait a minute," I said; " it's too beautiful to
talk."

The dark had come with a swoop, as it always docs
here, and now we were rowing through inky blackness
of sea and sky ; the only light came from the phosphorus
on the water, but its glare, as we cut our way through
it, was brighter than a moon. It was most unearthly.
We seemed two lost souls wandering about on the Styx,
having mislaid Charon somehow.

When I told that to Nev, he said perhaps he'd been
taken by an alligator, and he was jolly glad, as three
would be a crowd even in Hades,

I wish I could make you see the picture, but if you
never have I don't think I can. We rowed over a sea
of phosphorus. Wherever the oars dipped in, a wide
circle of silver splashed into widening ripples like
moonlight, and the water streamed away from the
boat's bows as if there were a lamp on them shining
dow^n ; while the drips from the blades, as they hung
poised in the air, scattered down like handfuls of
diamonds. Thousands of insects and baby fish darted
away in every direction, streaking rockets, and the
bigger fishes below sent up a deep, subdued glow
wherever they moved, as if there were electric bulbs
among the seaweed. And the black banks overhung
us like a threat.

"Well," said Nev after a little, "what does your
say amount to? "

Thus attacked in front, I somehow lost my nerve.
I had meant to be very straight-out and accusing and
calm. But now all my carefully prepared speeches went
right out of my head, and I couldn't think of a single
diplomatic sentence.

"It's about Terry," I blurted out, glad that the dark
sheltered my face. I paused, but Nev didn't help me.

"Terry," he repeated. " Yes ? "
Q

254 The Coconut Planter

"I — you. They say " Somehow Nev's stillness

was intimidating, or perhaps it was the dark and the
faint occasional bellow that came from the creek. Then
I grew ashamed of my cowardice and rushed boldly in.

"Are you not going to look for Terry now?" I
demanded.

"Who told you I wasn't?"

"Nobody," I replied more easily now the subject
was fairly broached, "but Billy told me yqu hadn't
your stores or carriers arranged for, and that the native
you had been waiting for in the first instance has been
here some days."

"He's a thoughtful youth — Billy," Nev said with
an air of reflection.

I waited a little. "Well?" I said.

Nev looked at me oddly. "Suppose I say I have
changed my mind?" he suggested. "Everyone says it
is a wild goose chase."

"But you don't believe it is," I said.

"What is one opinion among so many ? " he replied.

"Nev," I said, "if you don't go you will be a
murderer."

"No one would blame me for a minute if I didn't,"
Nev said defiantly. "They would say I had come to
my senses. Not one person but would say I was
wise."

"Wise," I said, "but a cad." I made myself say it.

"As a matter of fact," Nev said slowly, "I am
going."

"I'm glad," I said, while my heart sank.

"You don't sound it," he said. "Sunny" — he
trailed his fingers in the water till, when he lifted them,
he wore a pair of shining gloves — "if I find him "

1 locked my hands together and prayed. I think
I prayed. I know I was saying to myself over and
over: "I must play the game; I must play square."

The Coconut Planter 255

Then Nev moved from his seat and came and took
both my hands in his.

"Sunny," he said, "will you marry me?"

I don't guess any girl was ever more amazed at a
proposal in her life.

"But— but, Nev," I stammered, "you said you
couldn't. Besides, you don't love me that way."

"Love you that way?" he repeated in a voice that
vibrated c^ueerly. " Why, I think I love you all the
ways there are. I think I've loved you all the time,
Sunny — even when we were playing at it; but I didn't
realise it till you wouldn't play any more. Then I
found you'd done what you told me a girl one day
would do — you'd made a hole in my life that nothing
else can fill. Sunny, you love me, don't you?" He
didn't come any closer; it was only his voice made me
feel as if he were.

I tried to draw my hands away. I didn't know
what to answer. This was the last thing in the world
I had expected from Nev. But did I love him ? Did
I just? In that minute, as he looked at me, I knew I
loved him better than anything else on earth, betier
than I knew one could love anybody ; and — I had to
send him to look for Terry. I stared desperately ahead
and said nothing.

"Sunny," he reminded me gently. "I have asked
you to marry me. Will you before I go ? "

"At once?" I cried, amazed; "but f thought- "

"That a poverty-stricken loafer like me wouldn't
have the cheek to "

"Nev," I cried fiercely, "you know I'd marry you
if you hadn't a penny." ■

"Would you?" he said. "But I wouldn't have
asked you then. I can now. My circumstances have
changed. I thought such things never really happened,
but Do you remember me joking last week about

256 The Coconut Planter

my rich uncle dying and us getting engaged? Well,
the queer thing is he was really dead at the time, poor
chap. I got the letter by yesterday's boat, telling me
he's left half his money to me. Shall it be before I
go, Sunny? "

I locked and unlocked my hands, and my lips grew
dry. What could I say, what could I ? But Nev was
waiting for an answer.

"I — I think you know we can't, Nev," I said at
last.

He frowned a little. "You mean," he said, "you
still feel bound to Terry?"

"Yes," I said, with a miserable little smile. "I'm
still bound to Terry, if he is alive." Oh, if Nev could
have guessed how true it is, how hatefully, cruelly
true.

He frowned at me thoughtfully, and then, with a
funny little gesture, he kissed both my hands.
"Sunny," he said, "I've got a confession to make — a
rotten, caddish confession. It's that I have been
tempted, horribly tempted, for the last few weeks to
abandon my search and leave Terry. Billy guessed
right. I have been wasting time. Somehow it nearly
drove me mad at times to think I was, maybe, bringing
him back to take you from me. Sometimes I've almost
hated him; and he's my oldest pal. That's a pretty
admission, isn't it? Can you love me when I've felt
such a rotter ? "

And then I felt I couldn't bear it any longer. I
flung honour and pride and everything else to the
winds.

"Love you!" I echoed, as Nev had a little before.
"Oh, Nev, I love you better than heaven and earth
and everything in either. Oh, Nev, believe me, I love
you." I put my arms round his neck and kissed him.
"No matter what happens, or what comes between us,

A*

The Coconut Planter 257

never doubt it. Even if I can never marry you, Nev,
I love you. I just love you."

"Why should you never marry me?" Nev asked
sharply. "What do you mean?"

And then my flown prudence came back to me. "I
don't mean anything," I said. "But life is so chancey;
misunderstandings may come "

I stopped, suddenly tempted. It was in my heart
to tell Nev the truth. It seemed so unworthy, shuffling
and lying to him like this, when he was being so straight
with me; but if I told him now he might not go. He
was bitterly jealous of Terry as it was ; but if he knew
I was his wife, that I could never be his if he brought
him back

His voice broke through my struggle.

" But when I come back you will marry me ? "

I gripped the seat and prayed again for honour.
"Oh, Nev," I said, "would it be fair to promise now? "

He frowned again, but smiled too, and I knew I
had won,

"What a beastly little conscience you have, Sunny,"
he remarked. "All right; you shall have your way,
as usual. But when we come back you shall choose
between us. You'll promise that much?"

"I promise," I said with a wan smile, and carefully
choosing my words, "that when you both come back I
will tell you both which I love the best."

"Hurroosh!" said Nev, a boy again. "Then I'm
not afraid. Oh, Sunny, darling, I wish I'd gone and
were back now. Oh, the days and weeks and hours
before I'll see you again I Sunny" — his arms went
round me — "that beastly little conscience of yours won't
prevent you giving me a good-bye kiss, will it ? Just
one, to wish me luck to find him. Think how long
it will be before I can claim another; for next time I
shall claim, not ask, shan't I ? "

258 The Coconut Planter

I could not meet his eyes, but I gave him my hps
in silence. Was it wrong ? But it was the last he will
ever have. A long time, thinks Nev ; yes, as long as
never. He will never kiss me again.

And I am sending him to look for Terry. He will
bring him back to me — and I wish I were dead.

CHAPTER XLII

It's funny how, when you're miserable, Hfe goes on
just the same. It's a fortnight now since Nev started.
He left next morning at daybreak, at the "time wild
fowl he sing out," as my boys put it. He must have
had all his carriers and stores arranged for before I
spoke to him about it. I'm glad of that. I'd hate to
think he hadn't fought out his battle and won by
himself.

I did not see him again. He left before I was up.
He didn't even leave me a line of farewell ; but perhaps
he thought it would not be fair. And now we shall
not hear anything of him for months — if ever again.
It was just dreadful hearing them talk about him that
morning, for the whole township buzzed with his de-
parture. Most of them think he'll never get back alive
himself, let alone bring Terry.

"Why," I heard one old fellow say as I went past
the hotel, "he don't know the country he's goin' to.
I went up the Fly River once; but, though you don't
expect them boys to be doves, the Fly River crowd
are a little too hefty for my taste. There's tribes round
there has never seen a white man. And there's hundreds
and hundreds of them; and what chance is he goin' to
have with his dozen boys, even if they have got guns ?
A spear thrown straight from tree cover is just as good
a weapon, and they aren't such bad shots with their
arrows either. A seven foot stick ain't by any means
a pleasant thing to get inside you, specially when it's
tipped with cassowary claw, like most of them are. If

259

26o The Coconut Planter

you cut the arrow out, the blessed claw stays in and
festers."

Oh, why did Terry's people give Nev the money
for it? Why didn't they forbid him to go? It's only
one chance in a thousand. Even Mr. Carfew says that.
He admires Nev, but he says he thinks it's a forlorn
hope. Oh, until you've been here you can't even
understand what his quest is. There's miles and hun-
dreds of miles he'll have to traverse, where never a
white foot has been before. They'll have to cut their
way through virgin forest; they'll have to pick it out
along native paths that run knee-deep down rivers, and
cross ravines on tree trunks, where a moment's giddi-
ness means death. There are alligators at every mud-
hole, and snakes in every curve of the path ; at every
bush are like to be hostile natives lying in wait for
their tiny band.

And they don't even know where they are going.
All they have to guide them is the tale of a native,
which is probably lies where it isn't imagination.

How can he be so mad, so gloriously, splendidly
mad? But I'm glad he is, only — God take care of
him I

And now all I can do is wait.

Mr. Carfew is going down to Port Moresby to-
morrow, and Mrs. Carfew is going with him. I wish
they were not, for Dolly is in a wicked mood, and I'm
afraid for her. She won't go with them. She told
them, so Mrs. Carfew says, that it was too hot to be
bothered with going about just now, and it was cooler
here than in the port, and she'd sooner stay with me
or the Warrens.

I've refused point blank to let her stay with me.
I'm not going to be responsible for her, and I told
her so. She is only staying behind because she expects
that Erskine man back next week; but her people don't

The Coconut Planter 261

know that; they are under the blissful delusion Dolly
has obeyed them and given him up. I was most awfully
tempted, when Mrs. Carfew told me Dolly was stopping
behind, to give her a hint about things; but I couldn't,
because it was Dolly herself who told me. The cunning
little wretch ! She knew it was the way to close my
mouth.

So after to-morrow she will have a free field for any
devilment she wants to get up to. All I know is, she
shan't play any pranks from my roof, after the kind-
ness her parents have shown me, and I said so to her.

"All right; don't get your hair off," she replied
elegantly, when I said she couldn't stay with me. "I'll
hang out at the Warrens. I'll be able to do as I like
from there just as easily. Only Don thought you'd
be better, as then the township wouldn't talk as much.
However, I don't mind." She swung her feet from my
table and smiled blandly at me.

I had a last try at mildness. "Dolly," I said, "why
are you so obstinate about him ? There are such a lot
of nice men you could have if you held up a finger.
Why must you pick on a man not one of us think
good enough for you ? "

"That's just the shame of it," she said, her eyes
snapping; "everyone has a down on him."

I sighed and held my peace. When a woman gets
to the stage of thinking people have a down on a man,
you might as well save your breath. So I did; but isn't
it an awful pity? For Dolly is such a nice girl.

But it was no use to argue. If Dolly means to have
him, have him she will. But I know the Carfews will
never consent; and she's their only daughter, so it
looks ripe for a tragedy, doesn't it? I believe Mr.
Carfew knows something to his discredit that he won't
tell Dolly; but I think it's a pity he won't. I suppose
he thinks it's not the sort of thing for Dolly to know;

262 The Coconut Planter

but girls nowadays think they are quite capable of
weighing offences for themselves, and I believe, if he's
ever done anything really bad, it would choke Dolly
off, for she has a high sense of honour. Oh, it will be
just dreadful if she marries him ; it worries me to think
of it.

I wish Mr. Carfew hadn't to go away this minute;
but I don't suppose he knows Mr. Erskine is coming
back. In fact, the wretch told us all he was going
straight from the Trobriands, where I think they are
now, down to Samarai, to take his holidays which are
due, down South ; and, as it was Dolly who told me
he was coming back when she asked me could she stay
with me, I can't give them the smallest hint.

I like her for telling me, though. Of course, when
she first asked if she could stay with me I said I'd be
delighted, and that was why she told me about her
precious Don. She felt it wouldn't be fair to spring
him on me as a surprise. She is straight, you see, as
a rule, but she's playing double to her parents because
they have taken the high hand with her. I suppose it's
the only alternative to obedience, and that she won't
consider for a moment.

Oh, bother the natives and their rows. It's all be-
cause of them ]\Ir. Carfew has to go away just now.
There's been trouble for some time in one of his dis-
tricts, and at last he sent up a body of native police
under one of his officers, a Mr. Kerr, to quieten them.
Mr. Kerr wanted to settle things as peacefully as he
could, as all the magistrates up here do — they are
almost unjustly lenient to the natives, most strangers
think — and he gave his police orders not to use their
guns until he told them to.

Demonstrations of hostility were made against them
from the minute they arrived, but they were not actually
attacked till Mr. Kerr went with his men to their

The Coconut Planter 263

meeting-house to give them a talking to, and then one
excited native threw a spear.

That started things. In a minute out came knives
and tomahawks, and the whole crowd went for Mr.
Kerr's little band; but even then he wanted to get out
of it as peacefully as possible. So he told his men to
ward off the blows with their rifles, and tried to shout
arguments to the mob, and threats; but he might as
profitably have talked to the wind.

Several times his bovs begged permission to shoot,
but he shook his head and tried to wedge a way out
of the door into the open. Two or three spears flashed
past his head and stuck in the wood behind him, and
still he wouldn't let them shoot. They were almost at
the door when a big fellow pushed up close in the press,
breaking through the police boys, for the white man
was their main target, and he would have been stabbed
through if one of his boys hadn't disobeyed instructions
and, lifting up his rifle, shot the fellow.

That started all the police off. They didn't know
in the rush of the minute who fired the shot, but they
naturally took it for permission and blazed away, so
that the room was clear in half a jiffy. They didn't
kill many natives even then — about eight or nine ; but
there's the father and the mother of a row over it down
in Sydney. Of course, Sydney people don't under-
stand the circumstances a bit, and everyone up here is
furious with them, for Mr. Carfew is noted through
all the islands for his humanity; and if the police had
not shot then, and without Mr. Kerr's authority, the
white officer would certainly have been killed. But
Mr. Carfew is to be hauled over the coals for it.

The real cause of the trouble is, of course, the news-
papers. These curses of administration have got hold
of the story and given it quite a wrong twist down
South. Mr. Carfew is made out a heartless monster

264 The Coconut Planter

who kills a few innocent blacks before breakfast each
day as recreation — that sort of thing, anyway. And
the bottom of the trouble is that two of the killed were
women.

As if that was Mr. Kerr's fault ! In the half light
the police couldn't see who they were blazing at; and,
anyway, the women shouldn't have been about when a
scrap was likely. They never used to be in the old
savage days ; they were always sent well to the rear ;
but they say up here that is what civilisation has done
for them. They have learnt that white men will never
fire on women if they can help it, and so now, when
there's going to be trouble, the cunning wretches always
mix women with them in the front rows, as it makes
the white men hold their fire.

But folks in Sydney don't realise that. I suppose
we can't expect them to. I suppose, if I were down
there this minute, I should be sympathising with the
poor dead natives myself. But as it is we are all furious
for poor Mr. Carfew.

And so, you see, it leaves Dolly with a free field
for mischief.

CHAPTER XLIII

I'm settling down again now. That's always the way,
isn't it? Somehow, when you've work to do that
simply must go on day after day, it's hard to stay
miserable or excited; the sight of such a lot of other
people, who seem to have nothing beyond a particular
job on their minds, has a soothing effect.

I'm glad I've got my work to keep going. I think
if I hadn't I should go nearly mad, wondering where
Nev is now, and what he is doing, and whether he is
alive or dead. Of course, we can't expect any news
till he gets back, if he ever gets back at all. If only
he could let us know he is safe I But he can't — even
if he is safe, and it's more than likely he isn't. But
among the beginnings of things like this men have to
take their chances. I dare say they get some satisfac-
tion out of it, but for us women who sit at home and
wait — oh, it's just awful I

Sometimes when I sit down and think about it, I
can hardly believe I'm here at all. Last night I tried
to piece out the tiny things that uprooted me and sent
me so many thousand miles away from where I grew.
It seems strange how very small the things that decided
me were. For I might have done half a hundred other
things with Aunt Susan's money.

I suppose the chief thing that drew me here was
Terry. His having lived here had made me have a
feeling about it; I felt I should like to sec the place to
which, had he lived, I might have come some day as a
bride, but I think, even farther back than that, was the

265

266 The Coconut Planter

fact that, when I was quite small, I read a book called
"Discoveries in New Guinea." It was written by Com-
mander Moresby who, on a ship called the Basilisk,
was sent, in 1873, to investigate pearl-shelling condi-
tions in Torres Straits — pearlers used to kidnap the
natives and keep them at work indefinitely, slaves for
all purposes — and to fix more accurately the supposed
coastline of Papua to the eastward.

Father gave me the book one time when he was
down in Sydney to take care of for him ; he valued it
a lot, for one of Moresby's officers was an uncle of
his. The book just fascinated me; maybe, because I
w^as related to one of the men whose name was often
mentioned. It took my fancy as no pirate novel ever
did. It sounded to me as if discovering were ever so
much more exciting than buccaneering, and not so
cruel.

It must be glorious going where no one of your
own race has ever before set foot; and no one at all,
as far as is known, had ever explored the north-east
coast where Moresby went. He discovered Normanby
and Goodenough Islands right up to near us, and little
Samarai, which he called Dinner Island, because they
went there from Sariba, where he hoisted the flag, and
which he called Hayter Island, to have their dinner.
And he went right on to Milne Bay and East Cape.

Of course, he discovered Port Moresby, too, before
he got round to the east. Up till then there hadn't
been a good anchorage known where ships could get
shelter; they used to anchor out in an exposed place
called Redscar Bay. So he was as excited and delighted
as could be when they at last discovered the break in
the coral reef that led them to such a fine, big harbour.

It makes most thrilling reading where he tells how,
day after day, he looked for the passage round the end
of Papua that would shorten the way from Australia

The Coconut Planter 267

to China, as he hoped; and how, time after time, when
he thought he'd discovered the end of the mainland,
he'd find it was only another island and the water still
lay beyond. And all the time he was racing against
time, for he had to be back in Sydney at a set date.

And there are heaps and heaps of funny little ad-
ventures they had with the natives who, in most places,
had never seen white men before. As a rule, on the
coast, they found them pretty friendly. They were
more savage on the islands to the north. He tells one
funny tale of their attempt to make friends with one
lot. A common friendly practice, they soon found, was
for the natives to sacrifice a dog, but the first time it
happened the commander was below asleep and, when
the natives seized the cur by its hind legs and dashed out
its brains on the snowy deck, the officer of the watch was
so incensed at the mess that he then and there chased
them off the ship.

And, another time, one fellow they coaxed on board
from a very timid village they wanted to trade with,
held his nose so firmly they concluded it must be a
form of salutation, and the commander, wishing to re-
assure him, ordered all the crew to hold their noses,
too. The effect was magical, the native becoming
friendly at once, but, he says, you can't imagine how
ludicrous everybody looked.

And, one night, when the crew were having a penny
reading and a concert — to while away the time — and
singing choruses, they caused great commotion in a
village on the beach. The men all began to muster
and blow conches; they evidently took the choruses for
a defiance, for they soon began to chant a war song
back.

I love reading it over even now. Of course, I'm
here and seeing the same sort of things he saw, but it
must be thrilling to see them first of anybody.

268 The Coconut Planter

All this, I suppose, had prepared my mind so that,
when the actual seed fell, it ripened quickly. The seed
fell one day while I was on a ferry going over to the
city. I happened to be sitting alongside two men who
talked about Papua. I wasn't paying any attention to
what they said, of course ; I was watching the waves that
licked up the side of the ferry and shone like broken
glass about the old convict fort, then suddenly the word
"Papua" shot through my consciousness and I did
listen.

They were discussing a mutual friend who, it
seemed, was up there ; he had been a planter for years.
The three had apparently been to the same school and
were old friends, and one of them had run across him
in Pitt Street a day or two before, down on a holiday.
And they drifted on to the subject of planting, and
what a good thing it was for a man with spare cash
to invest it in Papua, for it was the coming place.

And then one of them mentioned, to show how
much the Government wanted to encourage settlement
there, the easy terms on which they rented land. I
heard no more, for just then we reached the Quay and
everybody got up to press to the gangways.

I lost sight of the two men in the crowd. I shouldn't
know them again if we met, for their faces were side-
ways on to me, and I couldn't stare, but it would be
funny — wouldn't it? — if they could know that a chance
conversation of theirs on a ferry had sent a girl they'd
never heard of thousands of miles away to stake her all.

It is queer, there's no doubt — the tiny things our
lives seem to hinge on and the way our careless words
may influence the life of a person we don't even know.
It makes you wonder if it is chance after all, or whether
we are only threads in a vast web and must run the
way our patterns go.

Little Miss Brougli came out again yesterday. Billy

The Coconut Planter 269

brought her for me. She was so pleased about it that
I felt quite guilty I hadn't asked her before. And I
enjoyed having her quite really and truly this time.
We are getting better acquainted and she is beginning
to lose her shyness with me. Sometimes it makes me
feel almost motherly to her; it seems so strange an old
woman can be shy.

And, underneath all her timidity, she really has a
mind and can think, but she's never been encouraged
to air the result of her thinking; and so she has grown
back on herself, and is the queerest mixture of con-
servatism and the most appallingly advanced theories I
ever heard.

What a shame it is no one has ever married her,
for she is passionately fond of children ; she confided
to me to-day when we were talking under the palms —
needless to say Billy was elsewhere at the time — that
sometimes she almost wished she'd been a wicked
woman so that she could have had a baby of her own.
She got out her confession with her dear withered little
face all pink with blushes, and looked at me with a
pathetic determination to be truthful, and a dread that
I would be so shocked I'd never speak to her again.

Poor timid, brave little soul. I leant down and
kissed her.

"You know," she said wistfully, "Helen is going to
have one, and — and she doesn't feel a bit like I think
I would. I know she will never love it as I could. I
would have loved one so."

Poor starved mother-heart 1 Poor little Miss
Brough I I wonder if there has ever been a man in her
life at all ? How dreadful that must be ! To have loved
and lost is bad enough, but never to have had anything
that you can remember, anything to look back on with

a smile and a sigh I And yet — how love hurts too I

Sometimes I wonder if it's worth itself — for women,

R

270 The Coconut Planter

anyway; they have the hardest half. You see, they are
supposed to be so passive. And if they rebel against
that theory they only get laughed at.

Why, even Billy knows that. I suppose it was hav-
ing poor little Miss Brough in my mind later that made
me think aloud when he and I were alone together.
As we lay on our backs gazing at the stars, I said
suddenly :

"Billy, girls are fools to fall in love, don't you
think?"

"Yes," Billy answered, "unless they're sure the man
cares about them first."

I sat up with a shock and stared at him. I didn't
expect philosophy like that from little Bill. But when
you think it over, though it's brutal, it's about the
world's altitude in regard to women, isn't it? Men
have the first say in love, as in everything else, though
really it's a thing that has far more to do with women.

Women are much more tender-hearted than men and
more ready for love, and yet they are supposed to shut
their hearts up till someone knocks at the door. Of
course, the fiction is all right if the princess is asleep
and therefore happy, but ninety-nine princesses have
been awake ages before the prince comes, and it is so
lonely and tiresome in your old tower, waiting and
waiting and waiting.

You're apt to weave all sorts of ridiculous fancies
about the handsome stranger who rides gaily past to
another princess and you envy her — oh, ever so. And
it makes you wish your own prince would hurry up
and let you show everyone how sunny and loving you
could be once you were outside the gloomy walls of
maiden reticence.

No girl really likes to be locked up in a tower, but
there's a big dragon called Propriety that rules the
world, and no one dares offend him, and the dragon

The Coconut Planter 271

pretends it's the best thing that could happen to the
princesses because it makes the princes feel so nice to
be able to let them out ; but some princesses never get
let out, and that is where life is quite cruel. And so
they sit up in their towers resting their chins on the
window sill and gazing down at the river's edge, where
the other princesses are playing among the dandelions,
and babies are kicking their fat legs against their
fathers* knees; and slow, hot tears trickle down the
princess's nose and she hates them.

It's women like poor little Miss Brough know just
how they hate them.

CHAPTER XLIV

War has broken out in Europe. We got the news
through by to-day's boat. It has been on for over a
fortnight and we knew nothing about it. I suppose you
can hardly reaHse how far out of the world we are
where news is concerned. There is wireless as far as
Port Moresby certainly, but that is over four hundred
miles away, and news has to come on to us by boat.

But if we got it late, we made up for it in excitement
when it did come. The ship that brought the news
carried all the papers she had been able to get in
Cairns, accounts of the first few days and specials and
such like, and we got the heartiest laugh out of them.
I dare say to the people who got them hot off the press
they were interesting enough, but to us, who read them
straight off one after another — and beginning at the
latest, of course — their rumours and statements and
contradicting statements were too funny for words.

In one paper was an account of a tremendous naval
battle — about twenty German ships sunk, no British
casualties; an edition later modified it to four of our
warships gone too; while paper number three, a few
hours later again, doubted if there had been a battle
at all.

Still, the people must hear something, and, anyway,
it makes papers sell. They are going to conduct this
war, like the Russo-Japanese scrap, with the maximum
of secrecy. I suppose it is the wisest thing. Kitchener
orders il, and he is our war god. It's strange how one
man can come to mean so much more than any other

272

The Coconut Planter 273

to the world. Not one, but many, of the men up here
have said, " Well, anyway, as long as we've got
Kitchener it'll be all right." It must be wonderful to
have a whole nation believe in you like that. To know
that thousands of people you've never even known
existed believe blindly in your judgment just because
it's yours.

And there's war, bloody war in Europe. I\Ien are
fighting and killing and burning and maiming, too, if
one can believe what the papers say — maiming weak
little children. If one-third of it is true, the Germans
will go down in history as the cold-blooded devils of
civilisation.

I'm trvin"- to realise it. Death and desolation in
Belgium ; and I am sitting on my small veranda and all
around me is the silence of the forest. Far down from
the huts comes the slow tum-tum of the native drums.
In a few minutes the head boy will send them to bed,
for it is nearly nine. Here war seems a dream; we
are so far out of the world that its bickerings seem so
small and futile, but the echoes reach us.

For we shall be drawn in. England's quarrels are
the quarrels of all who have her blood in their veins.
We read in the papers the messages from the ends of
the Empire. In times of peace we often row with her;
she doesn't quite understand her children who've grown
up and got ideas and ways of their own, and we think
she is stodgy and hard to comprehend. But when she
is in trouble, when the plucky little grey mother must
fight — why, we all come crowding back to her.

We'll criticise and grumble at her if we like; it's in
the family. But just let any outsider try ! Blood is
blood, and even gratitude bites deep, as the Boers have
shown ; and Canada is sending men and Australia has
offered and New Zealand

I wish I were a man to go, too. I wonder whv I

274 The Coconut Planter

feel like that? I've never liked English people I've met.
I've never set eyes on an inch of English soil and yet,
if I were a man, I'd go fight for her. How can a
mere name stir your heart so? For when they read
about the way she had stuck by Belgium and someone
among us called out "Good old England!" of a
sudden, the cheers rang to the roof from all our throats,
and when we looked at each other our eyes were wet.

Oh, yes, we're arrogant children in these new lands
of England. We're proud of ourselves and very
intolerant of her older, more set ways, and a little re-
sentful she doesn't think more of us, and we're very
determined to do just as we please, but when she's in
trouble — ah, well, she's England, and I guess we
remember we're England too.

But yet it seems absurd up here when all is so peace-
ful. I wonder will there be fighting here? That is
what all the men are wondering. German New Guinea
is so close.

CHAPTER XLV

The war excitement is dying down a little here from
lack of fuel. You can't keep enthusiasm up at fever
pitch for ever without news, and there has been no boat
of any sort for a fortnight. Things are falling back
into their old routine.

I am busy with my planting now. I have got all
my burning off done ; everything is consumed but the
old trunks and stumps, and those, they tell me, you
just leave to time; she rots them for you. I shall be
very busy for some time now, for I have not only to
get all my young coconuts transplanted from the
nursery, but I have my catch crops to put in to keep
the weeds down.

Mr. Ferguson advises me to put in my catch crops
first and the trees later, as the weeds grow so quickly.
Still, they don't generally appear for a few weeks after
the last burn ; so, if 1 get my arrowroot plants in by
that time, they will be strong enough soon to hold their
own against the weeds and I can proceed more leisurely
with my nuts.

Mr. Ferguson came out yesterday and put in a few
nuts to show me how they should be done. Isn't it
kind of him ? He only laughs when I try to thank
him, as he 'did before, and says he is doing as Mr.
Carrier told him, but, whether that's so or not, it's the
nice way he does it that I feel so grateful about; it
seems as if he really wanted to help me, whether he's
been told to or not, and, when I told him that, he said
perhaps I wasn't far out.

275

276 The Coconut Planter

He favours the diagonal method of planting, and
my trees have to be thirty feet apart. My soil is good,
and he says a hole two feet cube should be big enough
for each nut. You fill in the hole with vegetable mould
and surface soil of that sort, never with the earth you
have dug out, as I know I should have done. And,
when planted, the top of the nut should be nine inches,
quite, below the surface. Mr. Ferguson doesn't advise
me to plant more than fifty to the acre, although, of
course, opinions differ as to that. When they are in
full bearing, that averages out to about half a ton of
copra per acre.

Ain't I getting hot on statistics? I never knew the
business side of anything could be so interesting.

I wish Dolly could get an interest like this; it would
take her mind off her Erskine man. Thank goodness,
as soon as her people get back, she is to go down to
Sydney for a holiday. I don't suppose it will make
any difference to her going unless, as we hear is likely,
there is to be fighting in German New Guinea and
warships come about. I shouldn't like to travel myself
if they take to their North Sea habit of the promiscuous
dropping of bombs in our waters.

But I do wish the Carfews would hurry back, for
Mr. Erskine is still here, although I think the w^orst
danger is over for the present. I don't think she'll run
away with him now; I think I saved her from that,
although it cost me high. I had to tell her about
myself, and that is a thing I never counted on con-
fessing to anybody. But she has been very kind to
me, and I do not think she will tell anyone else; she
said she wouldn't.

I don't quite know what it was first gave me the
idea she was contemplating running away with him.
Maybe, it was a lot of little nothings that, put together,
seemed significant, and when I hinted at it, she didn't

The Coconut Planter 277

deny it. Dolly is usually truthful. I think it is
bravado with her; she likes to win her own way straight
out, to ride roughshod over objections. Deceit implies
weakness.

So she didn't deny it when I taxed her. "Suppose
I am going to," she said defiantly; " — well? Dad and
mother will come round later on. They've got a silly
prejudice against Don, that's all. But you might as
well argue with a post as a prejudice. It isn't as if
they had anything real against him."

"Perhaps not," I agreed; this was not the moment
to tell Dolly they had. "But it would be rather hard
on them, don't you think? They think a lot of you."

Dolly was more moved than she cared to admit. She
pouted. "They take a funny way of showing it then,"
she observed, "when they try to make me miserable."

"And," I said, dodging this remark, "somehow it
always strikes me as rather a cowardly thing to do.
You're generally so straight out, Dolly. It's what I
admire about you."

Dolly wavered. "I do like to fight things out," she
admitted, "but, you see, Don says it will mean an
awful long battle, for dad is most unreasonable about it.
If we were once married and the thing was settled —
well, dad would just have to come round. I know he
would all right, and to be married secretly would be
such fun. Sunny — think while everybody was calling
you ' Miss ' to know that you were really a * Mrs.' "

I smiled wryly. "There's not much fun about it,
Dolly," I said.

"You can't tell till you've tried," said Dolly. "Don
says it would."

I swallowed back my opinion of Don and kicked a
pebble thoughtfully. I was wondering whether I should
tell Dolly or not. I felt I couldn't bear to confess it to
anyone and yet, if I let Dolly spoil her life, too. . . .

278 The Coconut Planter

"Dolly," I said, lifting my head with sudden
decision, "I'm going to tell you something I've never
told a living soul. You said just now I couldn't know
whether a secret marriage was fun or not till I'd tried
it. Well, I have tried it."

"You ! What ! " said Dolly, sitting down heavily.

"I've tried it," I repeated. Now the first of it was
over I felt calm enough and even glad if showing my
scars would keep Dolly from making the same blunder.
"I am married."

"My sainted aunt ! " Dolly ejaculated. "Oh, Sunny
dear, is that why your eyes look so sad at times ? " Her
own widened. "You don't mean It isn't Mr. "

"Oh, no," I said, feeling a hot wave come to my
throat. "His cousin."

"My canonised aunt!" Dolly repeated, even more
fervently than before. "Not the one he's gone to look
for, Sunny?"

I nodded.

"O-o-oh ! " said Dolly. "How awful. Oh, Sunny,
what are you going to do ? "

"What can I do?" I said, with an attempt at a
smile, "but that's the kind of situation a secret marriage
lands you into, Dolly."

"But — but," said Dolly, "I thought you two were
going to marry each other. You do care about him,
don't you, old girl?"

"Don't, Dolly," I said sharply, as I got up; "he —
he's gone to bring back my husband." I made myself
say it.

Neither of us said anything for a bit, and then Dolly
got up and put her arm round my neck. "Poor old
girl," she said softly. "Oh, Sunny, I wish I could
help."

"You can," I said, trying to steady my voice.

The Coconut Planter 279

"Don't let me think I've told you for nothing. This
is what I'm paying for being a coward. Don't be one,
too, or some day you'll have to pay for it. If you want
your man, fight for him. Defy your parents if you
think he's worth it, but do it openly. Courage pays;
at least, you'll never have to wait for — a thing like
this."

"And oh, Sunny," she said, after a little, "he loves
vou, too. What wdll he say when he knows?"

I shivered. "Don't," I said. "That's what I think
all day long. A secret isn't all fun, is it, Dolly?"

"Oh, you poor old thing," Dolly repeated tenderly.

Even now it makes me feel dreadful to think she
knows. I feel as if I had let a stranger into my holy
of holies; and yet, if it has saved her from spoiling her
life, I am not sorry. She gave me no promise, but she
was very thoughtful all the rest of the evening. I do
think she will wait for her people now.

And I — am waiting for my husband.

CHAPTER XLVI

I GOT a note from Nev to-day. He had managed to get
it down to Port Moresby by one of his boys, and some
kind person there had put it in an envelope and
forwarded it to me. It was the queerest surprise to see
strange writing on the envelope and Nev's inside.

One of my boys, whom I had sent into the township
for the post, brought it out to me just as we knocked
ofif work. I felt quite trembly as I unfolded it. It was
a very dirty, crumpled piece of paper torn from a note-
book. Nev hadn't even had an envelope, so he couldn't
say anything very private if he'd wanted to; and,
anyway, it might never have reached me or fallen into
goodness knows what hands. I suppose that was why
it started without any beginning. The writing was
rather faded and smudgy, but with patience I made it
all out. I read it over and over. It ran :

"All right so far, but we're in a rotten part of
country, and w^e have heard nothing yet of Terry. The
natives are timid round about and not very friendly,
and it means constant watchfulness. The climate, too,
is rotten. When it's not raining you get soaked through
and through with heavy, dank mists, w-hich come down
from the mountain tops. The trees and shrubs are
always dripping with moisture. The ground underfoot
is smothered in lichens, which give way under you like
a sponge. We are never dry. The natives round about
will have nothing to do with us, so we can't get any
vegetables or fresh food except occasional pigeons, and

280

The Coconut Planter 281

it's making some of my boys sick. I've been trying to
push on, but beriberi has broken out among them. I've
been afraid I was going to get it myself, for last week
my right leg was very swollen and 1 could press my
finger in it anywhere and leave a deep hole of half an
inch or so. However, I seem to have got pretty right
again. But one of my boys died this morning and
another is very bad. I am sending him down to the
coast with two of the others, so I thought I'd send you
this note by them, which, of course, you may never
get. The rest of us will press on, and we hope to
reach a river to-morrow, where we can cut off some of
the journey going down the rapids. It will be healthier
travelling, too.

"Good night, little girl, and sweet dreams. Terry
and I will be back on the heels of this.

"Oh, lass, it's hot."

Doesn't it seem to make him real? And to think
he wrote it a thousand miles and more away from me !
And it's dated nearly three months ago ! He was all
right then, but what, perhaps, has happened since ?
Two or three rumours have filtered through to us.
Some prospectors met him up the Strickland River (a
tributary of the Fly) not so long ago; they themselves
were turning back because the natives had grown very
hostile and were constantly threatening them, but Nev
wouldn't turn back. Oh, if he should be dead. If
they should both be dead to punish me for my wicked-
ness Oh, they couldn't be ! God, You wouldn't

let it happen ! You couldn't.

Last week a tale came through to us that two white
men, pretty done up, had been heard of in the Delta
Division not far from Kikori. The news all comes
down by natives, and, of course, you can't be sure
anv of it is true.

282 The Coconut Planter

Isn't waiting terrible? It's awful to be a woman
and have to stay behind. Nev may be enduring sick-
ness and hardship, but I think it's even worse for me,
sitting here at home, thinking of what he may be
suffering. Sometimes, I feel I could rise up and scream
when I think of the dangers he may be in at this very
moment, while I sit here in comfort. Perhaps, this very
instant, he is fighting for his life, his boat may be
overturning in a rapid, or he may be dying of hunger
or fever.

Oh, God, do take care of him. Please take care of
him for me. Or, even if it is not for me, take care of
him. Yes, even if he comes back to hate me, to go to
another woman, bring him back just the same. I will
be good; indeed I will; only, God, bring him safely
back.

It is next day now. I couldn't go on yesterday, but
I'll try to be sensible and not rave to-day. It's so hot,
I had to knock off work early this afternoon and come
and lie down. I have a headache and feel ill all over.
I've taken some quinine, and I do hope I'm not sicken-
ing for anything. I've been wonderfully well so far;
I haven't even lost my colour. I suppose it is because
I live carefully and sleep well and take care of myself
all round, and do just enough work to keep fit. And
Dr. Ross says, if you take reasonable care like that,
Papua is as healthy as any other country.

But to-day I feel miserable. I think I'd like to cry,
but it's so babyish and cowardly. If those mosquitoes
would only stop their buzzing ! I think their noise will
drive me mad. Z-zing, luiz-z-z, buz-z, and then z-zing
again as a new soprano joins the chorus. I wonder if
they are malaria mosquitoes? they are different from the
ordinary ones; they have a funny way of standing right

The Coconut Planter 283

on their heads when they bite, and you don't feel them
bile either, but you do afterwards all right.

I believe it is Mrs. Carlyle who has made me feel
so bad.

When your mind is sick it makes your body ill, too,
don't you think? It does mine anyway. And the most
awful thing has happened. She knows about Terry,
too ! She overheard me telling Dolly. She was in the
garden next door reading.

Of course, it was mean of her to eavesdrop, but the
fact remains that she did, and that she has politely
threatened to tell Nev the minute he arrives back if I
don't. She was very polite about it, but the threat was
unmistakable.

It was dreadful. Oh, I hate to think that she of all
people should be on the inside of my life like that.
And now, you see, whether Nev brings Terry back or
not I shall have to tell him of my deceit, for, if I
don't, she will. Oh, she will all right; she wouldn't
miss the chance for worlds, although she conceded that
she will give me a reasonable opportunity to tell him
myself first.

But if I don't she will — there's no doubt about that.
She is appalled at my hypocrisy. I could kill her—
hypocrite herself. I'd like to know what she'd have
done in ray place.

Oh, I am so lonely and miserable. And the quiet
outside is frightening me again. I don't want to be
alone. Oh, God, send him back. And there's to-morrow

to live through and the to-morrow after that and I

wonder why life is so sad.

CHAPTER XLVII

Perhaps it was because all these rumours had got
on my nerves that I couldn't sleep that night; or,
perhaps, it was I felt something was going to happen.
One does get premonitions at times.

At any rate, I didn't go to bed. I did make one
try about half-past nine, which is my usual bedtime,
but I had no sooner taken off my shoes and skirt than
I felt I had to put them on again and wait. I didn't
know what for, but I had a feeling that, if I went to
bed, I wouldn't be prepared for it.

So I took Micky and went out on the veranda. It
was a moon night ; it hung over the world like the halo
on a Pre-Raphaelite Madonna, yellow and hard and fiat.
I sat and watched the belt of trees that have receded and
receded into the distance since we got to work on them.
Somehow, they felt unfriendly. I wondered if the ones
that were left hated me for killing their brothers and
feared me a little, too, for they must know their own
turn was coming to-morrow or one of the to-morrows.

The silhouette, which the moon behind made them
cast on the clearing between them and my house, seemed
to grow and lengthen as I looked, as if it were creeping
slyly upon me to surprise me if I took my eyes from
it, and my heart began to beat like the little child's,
whom Stevenson wrote about, when he saw the shadows
come marching, marching up the stairs.

My nerves were going to pieces again with the dread
of nothing at all, as they had that first night; but that
dread is the worst of all; it's the kind drives men mad —

384

The Coconut Planter 285

loneliness and the fear of it. And just then Micky
rolled over on my lap and gave a little snore.

Isn't it strange what an a/bsurdly small thing will
bring you back to sanity? Somehow, Micky's snore
was the most comforting thing that could possibly have
happened. It reassured me at once; he was so bliss-
fully, ridiculously pleased with himself and the world
that I felt things must be normal and right, for, if there
had been anything uncanny about me, Micky would
have sensed it in a minute. Animals do quicker
than we.

But he followed up his snore with a yawn and a
stretch and, digging one paw into me in a possessive,
friendly way, as if to show that it was his mistress and
slave and he could stick his claws in her if he liked, he
turned over and went to sleep again.

I laughed aloud and began to stroke him, and I
wasn't afraid of the trees any more; they had shrunk to
quite an ordinary shadow and then — something jumped
inside me and I strained my eyes to where the path from
Daikois wound out into my clearing, for emerging
indistinctly into the shadows of the trees were the
figures of some natives.

For a moment I went cold. Was this what the
warning had meant? They were going to attack me?
Doubtless they had expected to find me asleep in bed
and easy prey. I sprang to my feet, sending Micky
flying, and made one dive for the doorway to get my
revolver. Not that it would be much help, for there
were more than a dozen figures already, and what could
I do alone against a mob ? My boys were too far off
to help me; they would probably be murdered first. I
could hold them off for a while, but when they found
they had failed to surprise me they would probably fire
the house and that would be the end.

All this w'ent through my head as I hesitated that
s

286 The Coconut Planter

second before dashing into the house. Isn't it wonder-
ful how much you can think in a second? And then
my heart stopped entirely for a beat — but from another
reason than fear this time, for, emerging into the
shadow with them I now saw a white man and, as they
got into the moonlight, I saw that two of the boys had
a carrying chair slung between them and someone was
in it, but who was in it? Nev or Terry?

Somehow, it never occurred to me to doubt it was
they two.

I couldn't go to meet them ; my legs refused to move.
I could only grip the rail and strain my eyes toward
them. Was it Nev in that still, ominous chair? Was it
Nev?

And then they came closer, and I saw Nev was
walking beside it, and like a whirlwind I flew down the
steps to meet them. "Oh, Nev," I said; "Nev," and I
couldn't say any more. We just gripped hands in
silence. Then I looked down at the motionless figure in
the chair. "Nev," I said under my breath, "he — he
isn't "

"Lord, no," said Nev hastily, "but he's bad with
fever — blackwater. I've been scared about him all day.
We've been tossing about under the blazing sun, and
those small boats this weather are no place for a sick
man. Will you take him in. Sunny? I want to get
him to bed as soon as I can. I'm afraid of even
the five miles more into the hospital ; he can go
there later. And to tell the truth, we're all of us dead
beat."

And when I looked at him I saw that his face,
under the grime and bristly growth, was grey and weary,
and then I noticed, too, his clothes were all dirty and
ragged, and he was thin. He had always been thin,
but now

"Come in," I said. "Oh, come in." And we carried

The Coconut Planter 287

Terry into my room. He was yellow and dried
with fever, and he gazed blankly round; he didn't
know us,

"He's been like that since yesterday morning," Nev
whispered, "raving at times; it's been all we could do
to manage him. He's twice my size," and he glanced
ruefully at himself.

I felt so pitiful and proud of him on a sudden that
I couldn't answer, but I rolled the bedclothes down and
signed to the boys to lay Terry between the sheets.

"Oh, lord," said Nev, with a grimace at their dirti-
ness, "let's take his boots off first. Sunny, what a
shame it is to descend on you like this; but we got out
of our bearings. I lost my compass overboard yester-
day morning, and had to trust to the boys' navigation.
I wanted them to make for Bonagai and get straight to
the hospital, but when they ended us up this side of
the island I thought it would be quicker to strike
straight through Daikois to you. Poor old chap ! "
He stopped and looked at Terry, who was lying quite
still now, as if he were asleep. "He's had an awful
time. He was pretty near dead when we found him,
but he was game still. He kept up with us on his feet
all through the forced marches and the swamps and the
eternal sleeplessness of it all while we were dodging
pursuit. It wasn't till we'd got about clear of it all
that he gave in. I was scared once or twice that I
wouldn't get him back, as I'd promised."

I looked at Nev's eyes, bright with the want of
sleep, and at his sunken cheeks, and I knew whose
pluck and stubbornness had brought the little party
safely back from that hidden hell of nature and
humanity. Desperate weariness cried out in every line
of him, but, as usual, he thought of Terry first.

"We must get some of the dirt off him," he re-
marked. "I've done what I could with seawater; but

288 The Coconut Planter

you bring me a good hot basin of fresh and some soap,
and you'll begin to recognise him again."

He laughed to cover his feeling, and, somehow, as
I saw how tired he was and how pluckily he was hiding
it as long as there still seemed something to be done,
all thought of myself left me and I grew steady again.

"What you will do," I said decidedly, "is to go
into the kitchen, where Meva will give you a tub of
hot water, and freshen up yourself. Then he'll get
you something to eat. You look nearly starved.
"Meva," I added, "you go catchem kaikai for this
taubada. You cookem tea. Plenty kaikai. Quick time

now, or " I pointed to my riding whip. *' No

humbug."

Meva was out of the door before I had finished.
He knew I meant it. I've become a real slave driver,
but you have to be. The natives don't mind a blow
if they deserve it; but what they can't stand is to be
nagged at. They much prefer a beating ; scolding is
useless, too. They're awfully like schoolboys.

"Now, Nev," I said, turning to him, "off you go."

"But Terry," he protested.

"I'll attend to Terry," I interrupted. "I know a
little about nursing. I learnt first aid and care of a
sick-room and things like that when I was in Sydney.
They used to have classes for the girls at school. Nev,
don't argue. This is my house, and I'm taking charge.
Now go." And I pushed him gently to the door.

When he had gone I took Terry's filthy rags ofif
him and sponged him fresh and clean again. A few
tears got mixed up with the water as I sponged, for,
oh, you couldn't imagine a big man like Terry could
have ever become so gaunt and like a bag of bones.
They almost seemed in some places as if they would
burst the skin ; and all over him were the most awful
weals and cuts and scars.

The Coconut Planter 289

Nev has told me since that one way the Akarinas
used to amuse themselves was by tying him up and
throwing knives at him, like a Wild West show; only
in their case the knives had to hit, not miss; but only
so as not to inflict a fatal wound. Why they never
killed him outright Terry himself does not know. He
says he often wished they w'ould.

And to think he might have been there still if
Nev had not loved him better than any of us — better
than his wife. Oh, if one could die of shame, I think
I would have as I looked at him lying there; but I went
on with my task. It was all I could do for him now.

His own clothes were too dirty to think of, so I
kicked them in the corner to be burnt, and wrapped
him in a light woollen bath-robe of mine that was the
nearest thing I had to his size ; and I changed the
damp sheet under him, as a nurse had showed me how,
doing half at a time, so that you scarcely have to move
the patient at all; and I had him all clean and finished
by the time Nev put in an appearance again.

I hardly knew him either. He could not change his
clothes, but a wash makes an enormous difference,
doesn't it? And the vain wretch had actually troubled
to shave; and even his thinness didn't look so notice-
able now. He said it was the amount of kaikai Meva
had made him consume that had filled out his hollows.

"My word, he does look different," he said, as he
crept cautiously over to where Terry still lay in that
heavy stupor. "But what an awful shame to turn you
out of your bed. Sunny."

"Oh, I have another," I said, pointing to a second
stretcher upended against the wall. "I got it in case
Dolly or anyone should want to come and spend the
night any time. . I can make myself up a bed on it in
the vestibule. But I don't think I shall be able to
sleep to-night. He will want watching. But, Nev, I

290 The Coconut Planter

don't understand how to treat blackwater. It's more
dangerous than ordinary fever, isn't it? Hadn't we
better send for Dr. Ross?"

"I was just going to," said Nev, "if you'll give
me a piece of paper. I'll send the note in by one of
your boys. And, by the way, I'd forgotten my poor
beggars. Can they go down to the boy-house and get
something to eat? They're a bit done up, too. We
ran short of food at the last."

"I've seen to that," I said. "Here is some paper.
Get your note written, and I'll get it sent. Meva," I
said, turning to him, "you go down alonga boy-house;
you catchem one-fellow boy; you talk he come here."

As I came back Nev smiled at me oddly. "What
a self-reliant small person she has become," he said.
"Very different from the girl who left Sydney — how
many months ago is it now. Sunny ? "

"Scared of such a little bully?" I laughed.

"Not I," said Nev. "I can do a little in that line
myself, as you know."

Then his gaze fell on Terry, who moved uneasily.
•'What a beast I am to be talking like this," he said
in swift remorse, and, crossing over to Terry, he sat
down beside him. So I drew up another chair and we
sat there in silence.

The boy came to take my message, and again we
resumed our silent watch. Once, at Nev's suggestion,
I heated some milk and tried to get Terry to swallow
it. Nev said he hadn't eaten anything for two days,
and we knew that, at any rate, milk couldn't hurt him.
Between us we got a little down ; and once, as I lifted
the spoon away from his mouth, Nev bent and kissed
my wrist.

"Oh, Sunny," he said, "I didn't think I could love
you any more ; but after to-night I know I do. Between
us we'll get him better, please God."

The Coconut Planter 291

"Yes," I said, feeling as if each word was a drop
of blood from my heart, "we'll get him better." But
I drove back my tears and went on feeding — my hus-
band. I kept whispering the words over to myself :
"My husband." And Nev looked so happy — so happy !

Then Dr. Ross came. He said Terry was very bad
indeed, but with care he might pull through. He
agreed that Nev had done the wisest thing to bring
him straight to me, and he also said that, now he was
here, here he had better stop, as to move him to the
hospital might give him a chill which would be fatal.
Above all things, he must be kept warm. The nursing
would not be hard. All we had to do was feed him
on custards and milk and things, and, if his temperature
took to rising, I must give him two or three grains
of quinine. But, of course — he looked at me doubt-
fully— it was going to be a little hard on me, for I
couldn't watch a sick man and be out with my boys at
work too.

"The work must go," I said quietly. "This is my
first duty."

"Well," Dr. Ross smiled at me, "I don't know it's
altogether your duty to take in the sick stranger, Miss
Shale, but I think it's very fine of you."

And I felt the most miserable hypocrite born.

"But," he continued, "I think we could very likely
get someone in from the township to look after him for
you."

"No one shall do it but me," I repeated — a little to
his surprise, I could see. "I'm afraid I haven't room
for a staff of nurses," I explained. "I can manage."

"You can't watch day and night too," Dr. Ross
objected; "and he may need it for a few days. Perhaps
one of the Miss Warrens would come up and help you
till the worst is over."

"They could not separate," I said slowly, "and I

292 The Coconut Planter

couldn't put up both; but" — a sudden inspiration came
to me — "if old Miss Brough would come, doctor, I
would like her immensely. I believe she would be
only too glad, if Mrs. Carlyle will let her."

"Mrs. Carlyle will let her," Dr. Ross said decidedly
as he rose. "I'll see to that. I'll send her out first
thing in the morning. But about to-night?" He
paused.

"I'll stay to-night," said Nev decidedly. "Miss
Shale can't be left alone. He gets violent every now
and then. I'll sit up with her."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said, quite as
decidedly. "You are nearly dropping with fatigue
yourself. I can manage quite well alone."

"I think," said Dr. Ross, with quick delicacy, "that
we will both stay and take it in turns to watch, if you
will let me send one of your boys into Kulumadau,
Miss Shale, to explain my absence to the hospital."

So that was how we settled it.

Only once in the night Terry regained conscious-
ness. It was just as Nev came to relieve me after a
sleep. I was rising from my chair when Terry's eyes
opened.

"Sunny," he said weakly. "Sunny! Oh, lord, it's
the fever again." He shut his eyes for a moment, and
then opened them with a puzzled expression. "Of
course, I'm dreaming," he said slowly; "but it's funny.
I can't see you at all when I shut my eyes, and that
generally makes you come clearer." His fingers plucked
at the coverings. "Sheets," he said weakly. "Silly
fool ! Of course, you're dreaming. In a minute I'll
wake up and see those black devils again. It couldn't
be true."

"Yes, it's true, old chap." Nev's voice was even
gentler than I had ever heard it. He leaned over from
the back and put his hands on Terry's shoulders.

The Coconut Planter 293

"Keep cool and you'll remember. It's Imp here. You
know, I came for you, and we got away together. I
got you back liere safely. You've a touch of fever,
sure, but you're safe with us. And it's Sunny, too.
She is up in Papua. And now you've got to go to
sleep and get better."

Terry's eyes cleared. "I remember," he said slowly.
"But where did you get Sunny?"

"There, old chap," Nev said soothingly, "never
mind how she came now. She's here; that's enough.
We'll tell you by and by. Have a sleep."

Terry still looked at us with that pathetic doubt.
"I suppose I am dreaming," he muttered again. "I've
dreamt it so often." One feeble hand groped for Nev's
and the other sought mine. I put my hand in his and
he smiled at us both. "Sunny/' he said, "and Imp!
Dear God in Heaven ! " And holding fast our hands
he fell asleep.

For a moment Nev and I gazed at each other across
him in strained silence. "You didn't tell him about
me? " I whispered.

Nev shook his head. "At first there wasn't time
to talk; we thought of nothing but escape; and after
that he was too ill, and I thought it best to wait till
he was well again before we told him anything at all.
Oh, Sunny, how we're going to hurt him, you and I.
Poor old chap ! "

And I looked down at Terry and said nothing ; but
it was not him I was pitying. What will Nev say when
he knows ?

CHAPTER XLVIII

Things are most unbelievably peaceful here just now.
It's the lull before the outbreak, I suppose, for there
isn't any peace for any of us really. We're all walking
on a volcano; for Nev has got to know some time, and
every day brings it nearer. You see, even if I don't
tell him, Mrs. Carlyle will. Besides, I must, anyway;
there's always Terry.

He is nearly well now. He got up yesterday for
the first time, and sat in a chair fully dressed. But
he said he never before knew dressing could be such
an effort, and that it was so long since he'd worn a
proper shirt or coat he'd most forgotten which was
front and which back. He hadn't a rag of his own,
of course, and Nev's clothes were too small; but Dr.
Ross, who is about Terry's build, has sent him a couple
of suits and other things till he can get some.

Of course, an ordinary bout of fever wouldn't have
pulled Terry down like this ; but Dr. Ross says he is
paying for the nervous strain of his long ill-treatment
among those w-retches. That is why, for days after
he arrived, we were not sure how it would go with
him. Dr. Ross says it was our nursing saved him.
We never left him for one moment, Miss Brough and
I. He says Terry owes his life to us as much as to
Nev. I'm glad I helped; it would shame me beyond
all if Nev had left me nothing to do.

People have been so kind. They sent us out fruit
every day, and the Carfews sent what was beyond all
price — almost all their daily milk. As theirs is the

294

The Coconut Planter 295

only cow in the place, you can guess what that meant
to Terry, who had to live on milk food. I guess they
saved him too. Anyway, he said yesterday he feels
strong enough now to lick both his nurses with his
hands tied behind him.

He pretended to rebel when we sent him back to
bed so early, but he was really glad to go, he felt so
weak. But he is stronger again to-day ; he even hobbled
as far as the veranda and a few steps down the path.

Nev has been out to see him every day, and he was
as mad as could be yesterday, he was so overjoyed to
see Terry up and dressed. I sprang it on him as a
surprise. I hadn't told him I meant to let the patient
try. I thought, you know, it would seem strange at
first to be with them together, but it doesn't a bit.
It seems as if we'd all always been. I wasn't a bit
awkward. We chatted together as if we were brothers
and sisters. Oh, how I wish it could last like that;
but, of course, it can't.

Once or twice I have thought Terry was on the
point of saying something about me to Nev, and I
have gone cold with terror; but he hasn't, so far. I
can tell by Nev's manner.

But I am beginning to wonder what Terry is think-
ing. He hears everyone call me Miss Shale, but he
asks no questions. I think up till now he has been
too ill and tired. All that has occupied his mind has
been the wonderful feeling of coming back to life and
strength, and he has taken my being there and every-
thing else for granted.

Only once he questioned me. It was while he was
still in bed. Miss Brough spoke of me to him as Miss
Shale, and when she had gone out of the room he
said to me :

"You didn't tell my folks after they said I was
dead ? "

296 The Coconut Planter

I shook my head. "That was for you to do, not
me," I replied.

Terry looked gravely at me. "You are right," he
said. "I put you in a rotten position, Sunny, but God
knows I've been sorry enough."

"There, never mind now," I said hastily, for he
was becoming flushed. "You mustn't worry about
anything; it's all right now."

"Yes," he assented. "At least, I'll try to make it
right. I'm afraid you made a poor bargain, Sunny,
but I'll try "

"Not another word," I said sternly, "or I leave the
room. You are becoming excited, and Dr. Ross said
you were not to. If you keep quiet I'll stay here and
mend in a nice domestic way, as" — I struggled with

my tongue — "as a wife should; but if you talk "

I waved my needle towards the door.

I don't know how I said it, but I was glad I did.
It quieted Terry at once, and he lay and smiled at me
contentedly as I tried to sew. Once he laughed and
spoke again.

"You never could sew," he scoffed. "That's only
to impress me. How big are your stitches. Sunny?"

Then we talked nonsense for a bit. Terry can be
amusing when he likes, and I really love talking to
him. At least, I would if it wasn't for the feeling at
the back of my mind that at heart I am unfaithful to
him. It makes me feel so dreadfully, shamefully mean.

The worst of it is I can't help loving and admiring
him, too. If I could only hate him I could feel easier
about loving Nev ; but all through his illness he has
been so uncomplaining and cheerful and trying to save
us trouble whenever he could, and grateful in the most
delicate way for every tiny thing we have done

Oh, why did I ever meet Nev? If it wasn't for
Nev I could love Terry ever so. I do love him, but — I

The Coconut Planter 297

love Nev better. How wicked that sounds; but I must
be honest with myself, even if I can't afford to be with
anyone else, and then perhaps I shall be able to be
strong; for Terry must never know. He is my hus-
band. I chose him freely, and I must keep to my
bargain; it's only square. Maybe in time I'll learn to
forget Nev and love Terry again. But, oh, God, I
don't think I ever can.

Oh, why was Terry counted dead like that ? You
see, if he never had been I should have gone on loving
him; at least, even if he had hurt me so I didn't care
so much, there would never have been anyone else. I
do not think I could ever have been as low as that.
If I had only met Nev and known him as my husband's
friend, then I know I could have loved him a lot, but
it would never have been this way. But I thought I
was free.

I wonder why things have happened like this? Ah,
well, I used to say the fate of every man is bound
about his neck, so I guess the only thing for me to
do is to be brave about it, for I can't let Terry guess.
It would be too cruel, now he has come back from the
dead. To come back to a faithless wife would be crueller
than to have left him with the Akarinas.

I wonder if he does suspect anything. He can't,
surely; and yet once or twice I've wondered. He is
sweet and jolly and dear to both Miss Brough and
me. She simply adores him, and sits looking at him
with a perfectly entranced expression, while he is lay-
ing himself out to amuse her. Terry takes a lot of
pains to entertain her, and every time I see him doing
it I feel I love him, for it sends her into the last heaven
of joy to have — as she shyly confided to me one day
— such a big, wonderful man really seeming to like to
talk to her. It is quite pretty to watch her little flutter
of pleasure and shyness.

298 The Coconut Planter

Sometimes, when I watch them together, Terry so
gentle and laughing and big, I forget we are here, and
it carries me right back to the days in Sydney when I
first met him. That is how he used to make me feel
too. And then I get a big swelling in my throat, and
it hurts so that I feel something inside must surely
burst. Oh, why must I remember and love him too,
when I love Nev?

What frightens me a little sometimes is that Terry
has never once asked me to kiss him. Because he hasn't
I kiss him sometimes, but he only smiles up at me
and doesn't kiss me back. And he used to be like
Nev.

At first, of course, he was too ill. When men are
really bad they can't feel about things like that; and
when he first began to get better I was glad he didn't,
as it seemed to make me less of a hypocrite ; but now it
makes me uneasy. For I don't want Terry to know. I
should die of shame. He is my husband — I tell myself
that every day — and I must cleave to him as I have
promised before God. But — how shall I bear it?

CHAPTER XLIX

The end is coming. It can't be put off any longer.
Nev must know. I must tell him to-day or to-morrow.
And how am I going to do it ? Terry is nearly well
again. At least, he's strong enough to walk a little
by himself now. The improvement he makes every
day is marvellous, and Dr. Ross says by the end of
the week or the beginning of next he'll be as fit as
he's likely to be for some time. It will take time to
shake off entirely the effects of his awful hardships;
but he is naturally very strong and healthy, and it has
not affected his constitution as it might have some
men's.

And, you see, too, now he is stronger he is begin-
ning to think about things. He hasn't asked me any-
thing about how I came to leave school and come up
here. I think Nev must have told him, but I suppose
he has been thinking while he was lying there. And,
again, now he can walk he can't stop here with me
much longer unless we tell people, even if it is the land
of unconventionality and I have old Miss Brough.
There's Mrs. Carlyle to reckon with, for one.

I've been expecting it for days, so when he started
this morning I wasn't so very surprised. I was sitting
beside him on the veranda for a few minutes in my
working togs, for I w-as going down to my boys for
a couple of hours. Now he is better I leave him to
Miss Brough a little more, for, when he was really
ill, I just let the work slide entirely and stayed with
him all the time, and I'm trying to catch up now the
time I missed.

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300 The Coconut Planter

He was lying on my bamboo lounge, looking better
than he has for ages, and I was sitting on the step
with my chin in my hands and my notebook and whip
beside me, watching the little black dots hacking and
hewing in the distance. It's quite a long distance now.

"Sunny," he said after a bit, "either my memory is
bad or you've grown prettier than you even used to be
and that was some."

I laughed up at him. "The effect of hard work," I
said. " It agrees with me. Down in Sydney, too, I
was always worrying about something, but up here,
with nothing on my mind, I've grown quite dis-
gustingly fat."

"I fail to see the adjective," said Terry. "But,
Sunny, how have you been managing about your
plantation all this time I've been sick on your hands?
I don't suppose your boys have done anything, have
they ? If you knew what I feel being a burden on
you like this."

"Don't be silly," I said lightly; "it's been going on
much the same except for the first few days. I go out
with them part of the time Miss Brough looks after you,
and put the fear of the Lord and me into them —
especially me. And Nev straightens out my books for
me every day when he comes out, and Billy Burroughs
does any other odd jobs I want done. I've the kindest
friends."

But Terry didn't seem to be listening. "Sunny,"
he said, "you are interested in this plantation game of
yours, aren't you ? "

"Yes," I said, puzzled. "Very. Why?"

"Will you want to stop on still now or "

"Oh, Terry," I cried dismayed, "you wouldn't want
me to give it up. It would be such waste."

"All right," said Terry, "then we'll stop here. I
guess it's about time you had things as you wanted."

The Coconut Planter 301

"But — but," I stammered, taken aback, "haven't
you — won't you — have to "

"Go back to the company," Terry finished for me;
"not unless I like. And if you want to stay here, I
won't, for a bit. Oh, you needn't look so dismayed,"
he laughed; "I'm not going to sponge on you."

"Terry I " I protested, indignant.

"There, I'm only teasing," he said, "but you did
look so very surprised, you know. You see, Sunny, I've
come back from the dead to find a young fortune wait-
ing for me, which makes my return all the less com-
plicated for everyone. You see, quite lately an old
uncle has died and left his money, of which he had
quite a nice pile, between Nev and me in equal shares.
He'd made his will years ago when we were both kids.
He must have taken a fancy to us then, I suppose, for
we've scarcely set eyes on him since. He was a
squatter, an eccentric old bird, and though he must have
known I was dead " — he stopped and we laughed at each
other, the words came so naturally — "he either wouldn't
alter his will or died before he remembered to do so.
Anyway, as I'm most conveniently not dead, I get my
share. So, you see, you can live just where you please,
and I guess you're going to as well, Sunny." His voice
grew graver. " I haven't thanked you for what you've
done for me. I "

"Terry," I protested, "how dare you? Why "

"Yes," he said, "I guess you won't let me. But
because I've said nothing doesn't mean I haven't
thought a heap. I haven't helped to make your life
very happy up to date, I'm afraid, little girl, but if
there's anything now, just anything in the world I can
do to make you happy, even if it's " — he laughed at
me — "disappearing again, you've only got to say the
word. I guess I owe it to you anyway. I think you're
the Oh, well, what use are words? But since I've

302 The Coconut Planter

been ill I've been wondering how ever I could have been
lucky devil enough to make you love me."

I looked away feeling almost angry. Somehow it
vexes me to think, after all this time, he takes my love
for granted. And then I felt ashamed. Of course, it's
what I want him to think. I want to make him happy
again, too. If he owes me a lot surely I owe him some-
thing. For what he thinks he possesses has been
stolen from him. I may give him myself, but my love
isn't mine to give any longer. But he must never
know. I am his wife, nothing can alter that; not even
my love for Nev, and it will take me the rest of my
life to pay off this year's disloyalty. Oh, he must
never know about Nev.

And then, as if my thought had travelled across to
Terry, he spoke.

"Sunny," he said, "does Nev know?"

"Know what?" I said, pretending to watch some
lizards. There were dozens and dozens of them, little
fellows, not much thicker than my small finger and
about ten inches long, scuttling and skithering in and
out a heap of dried leaves near by. But Terry was not
to be put off.

"Does Nev know you are my wife?" he repeated.

"Oh, hush," I said, glancing round fearfully, though
we were alone.

Terry looked at me, and I dropped my eyes. "I
don't quite understand," he said slowly. "I haven't
said anything so far, because I reckoned it was up to
me to have it out with you first, after all that has
happened. But, hang it all. Sunny, you can't suppose
I enjoy lying here and hearing that doctor chap and
others call you Miss Shale."

"You didn't mind in Sydney," I said cruelly, and
Terry winced.

"No," he said, in a tone that made me despise myself

The Coconut Planter 303

for an ungenerous beast. "But I honestly thought then
it was the wisest thing. I can see now I was wrong and
selfish, Sunny. I do not excuse myself, but still it's
only fair to remember I was three years younger then
and I've — well, I've had chances to think lately."

As he spoke I saw again the awful hut Nev had
described to me, and Terry, month after month, alone
and sick and suffering. He had endured something, too.

"Terry," I said, "forgive me. I'm a beast."

"No, you are not," he said gently; "I don't wonder
if you have felt a little bitter. I think it was away out
there I learned to see it from your point of view, and
I guess it will take a lot of making up to you. That's
why I want to start right away. You see, keeping on
like this, now I am better, looks as if I were ashamed
of you or you of me." He glanced whimsically down
at himself. "'Pon my soul, I don't believe I could
blame you if you were — what a thin scarecrow I've
got."

"Terry, you vain wretch," I said, though tears
trembled in my voice, "you know thinness suits you,
you're handsomer than ever."

"What a loyal, admiring wife it is," he laughed,
and I set my teeth and laughed, too. I've got to get
used to it. I've got to, so I might as well begin.

Terry took my hand in his as I sat with downcast
eyes. "People have got to know sooner or later,
haven't they?" he said gently.

"But — but," I said, desperately catching at straws,
don't you think if — we mean to — to let people know,
don't you think you ought to tell your father and
mother first."

"I'm going to write to them by this boat," Terry
answered with quiet dignity; "there's one on Monday.
Anyway, Sunny, I wish you'd let me tell Nev; we've
always been such pals, and I hate having a secret from

304 The Coconut Planter

him. He will be jolly hurt when he knows. May I
tell him when he comes to-day ? "

"Oh, no, no," I said hastily, "you mustn't tell him;
let me."

"Why you?" said Terry in a peculiar voice; he
had dropped my hand.

"Well, you see," I explained in an agony of con-
fusion, "I've known him a long time, too, and — ^and
he told me he was your cousin and I didn't tell him
about it and — not even when he was going to look for
you and — oh, Terry, he'll think me so deceitful. Let
me explain why I didn't."

I didn't dare look at him, and the silence seemed an
eternity before he spoke. It sounded as if he were
forcing himself to be cheerful.

"We'll tell him together, then," he said.

I didn't dare protest again. But tell him together 1
Good God in heaven — as if I could I Oh, no, I must
tell him before Terry gets a chance. I shall have to tell
him to-morrow. I do not think he will be out to-day,
though Terry does. He told me he had something
special on the mine to do.

Oh, I couldn't let Terry tell him. I think some
minutes I shall die, but I'm afraid I couldn't have such
luck. How can I ever face him. I shall make him hate
me, but we mustn't hurt Terry; he mustn't ever know.
He's suffered enough. And I must go back to him and
be his wife again — his wife. For ever and ever till
death us do part — amen.

Oh, why can't I die?

CHAPTER L

I NEVER dreamed anything could be so dreadful. They
both know about each other. And I never meant Terry
to; I didn't indeed. I meant to go back to him — God
knows I did — and make it up to him. Oh, why must
he go and hear us ?

He went for a walk after lunch to-day with Miss
Brough. I asked her to ask him to go with her, and
she did without a question, and I thought that would
leave me time to tell Nev by myself and put him on his
guard for when Terry should tell him, so that he
wouldn't give us away. But Fate worked it differently.
I suppose it was Fate, for I had planned it well.

But telling Nev was dreadful. Although he made it
easier for me to open than I had dared hope. When
he found me alone under my paw-paw trees he sat down
beside me on a log without a word, and for a while I
said nothing either. When you are trying to think how
to break your own heart, and maybe another's, you
don't have time for ordinary greetings.

And, just as I'd screwed myself up to blurt it all
out, he said :

"Don't you reckon it's time we told Terry?"

And as I didn't answer he went on: "He's pretty
right now, and the longer we leave it the harder it's
going to be for him, for there's no blinking it; he cares
for you still. You know he does, Sunny."

I nodded miserably. I could see he hadn't finished.

"As things are w^e're fooling him, and that's the
hardest thing of all for a man to bear, to be made a

305

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fool of by a woman. You've got to let me tell him
that it's me you love now." He made a grimace. "It's
not going to be nice telling; he's my pal and he cares
for you, but all's fair in love. Terry will understand
that. Only, Sunny," his voice grew decided, "things
can't go on like this; you've got to let me tell him
to-day."

And then I think the courage I had been praying
for came to me. I smiled.

"Tell him what?" I said.

"That you are going to marry me."

"But," I said, "I'm not."

My smile grew strained under his gaze.

"You're what?" he said slowly and awfully. His
voice was awful; I can't describe it.

I couldn't repeat it. I looked down at my hands.

"Sunny," said Nev, "say that again." But I
couldn't.

"Do you want me to believe," he asked, "that you
love Terry more than me ? "

I clenched my hands tight, tight. "Yes," I said, "I
love Terry. I — you have no right to speak like that.
You — I only said when you came back I would
choose between you and — and I love Terry," I finished
stubbornly, though Nev's stillness was frightening.

Then the storm broke.

"You do not," he cried fiercely; "it's me you love,
or you are the worst liar on earth. If ever a woman
told man she loved him by look and gesture, you told
me. Why, your own words the night I left I You
swore you loved me better than heaven and earth and
all in them. Well.?"

"I've changed," I said in a small, miserable voice.
"For — forget it, Nev. It was a mistake."

"A mistake?" Nev repeated, deadly quiet again.
"Yes, I guess there's a mistake somewhere, and a big

The Coconut Planter 307

one, if you think I'm going to be put off like tiiis. So
this was what Mrs. Carlyle meant, was it? "

"Mrs. Carlyle," I cried, "she told you, then? Oh,
she promised she'd let me."

"Tell me what?" Nev said quickly. "She only
hinted there was something I didn't understand, and I
should say there was. Well, Sunny, are you going to
tell me ? "

"Oh, can't you see I'm trying," I said miserably.
"Nev, you're just going to hate me in a minute."

Not a muscle moved in his face. "Well?" he said
after a pause.

I hid mine in my hands. "Oh, I can't," I
whispered. "I thought I could, but I can't. Ask
Terry." I rose to my feet to flee, but he caught me
roughly.

"I prefer to ask you," he said. "Sunny!" He took
my chin in his hand and turned my unwilling face up
to his. "Tell me the truth. You love me ; why are you
choosing Terry ? "

I couldn't lie to those eyes. "I haven't any choice,"
I said in a small voice; "he's my husband."

And then I was frightened to look at him. I wondered
if he would kill me. I counted a hundred before I dared
open my eyes, and then he was looking at me, just
looking.

"Nev ! " I cried, but his voice stopped me.

"Don't touch me," he said; "don't dare to touch
me."

I shrank back and watched him, fascinated. His
face was quite expressionless now, and as I looked he
began to laugh, a low jarring laugh that had no humour
in it.

"Now, if that's not funny," he said, "me pleading
for Terry because I thought you were fooling him and
all the time it was me. My word, Sunny, Mrs.

3o8 The Coconut Planter

Carlyle was right; you're a cleverer woman than we
thought you. I never guessed a bit of a thing Hke you
could take me in, and you have. Oh, haven't you !
It's a treat ! What a laugh you must have been getting
out of me ! "

His features twisted in a kind of smile, but I could
hear the hurt fury of his pride in every sentence.

"And I used to talk to you about him, and all the
time you knew as much as I, you were his wife. His
wife ! and you used me to get him back for you. And
you swore you loved me. God, but it's funny 1 " And
he laughed again. I couldn't bear it any longer.

"Oh, you are cruel, cruel," I sobbed. "Do I look
as if I thought it funny? Oh, Nev, you'll break my
heart."

And then Nev spoke differently. "Sunny," he said,
"why didn't you tell me ? "

"Oh," I said unhappily, "I'd vowed I'd never tell
any of his people, and I thought you'd go out of my
life. I didn't think for ages you really cared."

"But after you knew" — Nev's voice was stern
again — "that was not honourable. Why did you not
tell me before I went ? " He scanned my face. "Sunny,
surely you didn't think it would have made a differ-
ence to my going? Did you think me as big a cad as
that ? "

"Oh, no, no," I said, "only — I didn't know; you
were jealous and "

"Perhaps you are right," Nev said slowly. "I may
he more rotten than I know, but that wasn't all your
reason, was it ? "

I wiped my eyes. "I thought," I confessed, "you
might stop loving me if you knew I had deceived you,
and that perhaps you mightn't find him and then you
need never know. Oh, Nev, I— can't you forgive me?
Don't you understand ? I was afraid of losing you."

The Coconut Planter 309

"Then you weren't playing?" Nev said. "You did
really love me?"

"Oh, Nev," I pleaded, "don't make me say it.
Can't you see it's no use now? We've got to forget,
both of us. I am his wife, and you are his friend ; we've
got to remember that and — and forget everything else."

"But I love you," Nev cried, with anguish in his
voice. "I love you."

"And I love you," I wept, "but Terry must never
know."

There was a little silence. "No," said Nev heavily,
"I suppose he must never know."

And then Terry came to us. He didn't look any
different from usual, and at first we thought he hadn't
heard, but his words showed us.

"I've been listening," he said. "I suppose it's a
rotten thing to do, but Miss Brough sent me back for
an umbrella, and I cut through the trees here in the
middle of what you were saying, and I went on
listening. So, you see, I do know."

"I'm sorry," said Nev, after the pause that followed
his words, but I could say nothing at all.

"I'm not," said Terry. "I hate lies. It's best to
know how w^e all stand. It hasn't come altogether as a
shock," he went on, seeming to be choosing his words
with care. "Since I've been getting better, I've been
noticing things and putting them together, and I've
thought there must be something I didn't know about.
I'm glad I know," he repeated. "I wouldn't have liked
it later if you'd kept me in the dark."

Nev went up to him and laid his hand on his sleeve.
"I guess you think me all kinds of a cad, Terry," he
said.

"I don't," said Terry. "You didn't know. It was
all right from your point of view."

"It wasn't," said Nev, flushing darkly. "It was

3^0 The Coconut Planter

rotten of me to try and cut you out while you were
away, but at the time I reckoned I had as much right
to her as you, even if I had come later. It was square
enough as between two men, but not as between two
pals. I think I'd like to ask your pardon for that,
Terry. It was dirt."

"Shut up," said Terry roughly, "and don't be an
ass. I'd have done the same."

They shook hands, and then there was an awkward
silence; both of them glanced at me.

"Look here, Terry," said Nev, speaking quickly,
"forget what you've just heard; let's all forget it. She
belongs to you and" — he swallowed hard — ^"she cares a
heap about you, too. Leave me out of it; I've got no
rating anyway, and in a little you'll both forget my
share. Terry" — his voice quivered — "don't let me
carry the thought round that I've spoilt the life of my
best pal."

"Don't be a fool, Imp," said Terry again, and he
put his arm round Nev's shoulder. "It isn't anybody's
fault; it's just the way things happen. Sunny" — he
turned to me — "do you mind if Nev and I go and have
a yarn by ourselves ? "

I shook my head.

They went a few steps. Then Terry came back and
stood beside me. Nev stayed where he was with his
back turned, but I saw the knuckles white on his
clenched hands.

"Sunny, dear," Terry said gently, "I don't want you
to fret. I don't blame you the littlest mite in the
world. Remember that. It isn't surprising you two
should have — should have got fond of each other.* It
was pretty conceited of me to have expected you to care
after all this time. And, if I'm saying or doing the
■wrong thing, it isn't because I feel wrong, do believe
that. You don't mind me and Imp talking it over, do

The Coconut Planter 311

you ? You see, we've got to fix it some way, and it's
easier to talk about you when you're not there. It
doesn't seem so much like bargaining you about. You'll
go inside and bathe your eyes — and don't worry, will
you ? "

"Terry," I said unsteadily, as I rose to my feet, "I
couldn't help it. I never meant to. Oh, why is life
so cruel ? "

"I don't know," said Terry, with a wry little smile;
"it isn't much of a picnic, is it?"

But why did Terry hear? Why did he? They
have not come in yet, and it is dark now. Terry
oughtn't to be out when the dew falls; he will get fever
again. And I can't help loving him, too.

CHAPTER LI

It's such a bright, happy day. You could hardly
believe things like yesterday have happened. Terry
didn't come in till quite late, and Miss Brough — afraid
he might have a relapse of fever — fussed after him so, I
didn't have a chance to speak to him, and I don't know
anyway whether he wanted to talk to me. I couldn't
tell anything from his face ; it was quite composed,
although he was pale, but then he is that always now
he has been indoors so long. Nev went home without
saying good-bye to us.

And to-day — the queer tragi-comedy of it — his
people came. You see, Nev sent a message down to
Port Moresby the day after he got back and had it
wirelessed down to them from there, and they caught
the next boat up. But Nev didn't tell us he'd done that,
and so we were taken by surprise. We didn't think
they could have got here so soon.

They arrived yesterday, but it was late in the even-
ing, and they couldn't get away from the boat, but they
started up first thing this morning and landed out here
before ten. Nev brought them up three-quarters of the
way, but, to their disgust, he said he had to work and
couldn't come any farther with them. I smiled as they
told me. Yes, I guess he wouldn't come. He'll never
come again.

I couldn't believe my eyes when they all panted up
the slope to the veranda. I was sitting on it by myself
watching the sky and thinking. Terry was not up.
And then they all appeared — Mr. Rossiter and his wife

312

The Coconut Planter 313

and even Cicely. Oh, but I was glad to see Cicely. I
cried over her almost as she kissed and clung to me; it
was so sweet to have something that loved me still when
the rest of my world had found me wanting.

And then Mrs. Rossiter advanced, her arms out-
stretched. "My dear Miss Shale," she said as she
caught me in a motherly hug, "Nev has told us all about
you. How ever can we thank you enough ? You have

saved our boy's life. And — and " She dabbed at

her eyes. "Oh, Andrew, you talk to her. I can't."

"Please don't, Mrs. Rossiter," I said. I was quite
the calmest of the four, but when you've nothing left to
fear or hope it's easy to be calm. "I did nothing more
than common humanity demanded when he was brought
to my door; but talk about it later if you will. I'm sure
all you want to see now is Terry. Shall I tell him or
will you go in at once? I think he's still in bed."

"Will the shock be too much for him?" Mrs.
Rossiter inquired anxiously.

"I think he can stand shocks now," I said as I
thought of yesterday.

"Sunny, darling," Cicely here broke in with a
child's uncanny penetration, "why are your eyes so
sad ? "

"Are they? " I drove up a smile. "Maybe I'm tired
a little. Run in, Cicely, and tell Terry you've come.
That's the door, on the right."

And then Terry's voice sailed out to us. " Is it fever
again," he called, "or do I hear the voice of my small
sister ? '''

Cicely gave one squeal and Mrs. Rossiter a sob, and
they were all in the door like a whirlwind. And I —
well, I went for a little walk. There wasn't any place
for me there yet awhile. Was there a place for me
anywhere ?

After a while I went back to the veranda, and Cicely

314 The Coconut Planter

came dancing out to meet me and put her arm round my
waist in her old possessive fasliion. "Oh, Sunny," she
said, "it's lovely to see you again. School's just
hateful now you've left; and, oh Sunny, do marry Terry
and let's be together for always."

And as I glanced down at her dear, eager face, the
useless cruelty of it all struck me afresh. If Terry had
not heard he could have told his people to-day and it
would not have hurt them much. In their joy at getting
him back from the dead, they wouldn't have much
minded if he'd brought six black wives to them, let alone
one white one. But he will never tell them now, he
is too proud to offer them a wife who does not care.

"And you're to come in," Cicely went on with
another skip. "Terry wants to get up, and he says
you've hidden his clothes."

I took Miss Brough in with me then and introduced
her to them, and somehow my heart tightened with the
pity of it all when I looked at his people, so radiantly,
wonderfully happy — even though Mrs. Rossiter was
crying quietly into her handkerchief, and Terry was
playing the game so bravely, too, laughing and joking
with them. No one but me could see the hurt in his
eyes behind the laughter. That came when he looked
at me.

"These are my two devoted nurses and tyrants," he
said to his mother; and then Mrs. Rossiter insisted on
kissing little Miss Brough, too, to her intense pride and
embarrassment. She can't get used to the fuss everyone
makes of her now after being an unwanted doormat all
her life, and she dreads the day she will have to go
back to Mrs. Carlyle.

"Devoted nurse," Terry pursued lightly to me, "will
you tell me where you have concealed my borrowed
raiment, or the clean pair of it? I want to get up,"

"I haven't concealed it anywhere," I retorted; "I

The Coconut Planter 315

expect Mcva has taken it out to wash and, you know,
in spite of the bold face you put on to your family,
you'll have to stay in bed till it's returned to you."

As I spoke I got out a clean suit for him and laid
it on the chair, and it wasn't till I saw Mrs. Rossiter
glance queerly at me that it struck me how it must feel
to her to see a strange woman putting out her son's
clothes and looking after him like this. How could she
guess I am nearer to him than she ?

"Now scoot," said Terry to us all, "and I'll be with
you in three shakes."

I can't tell you what we did all that day. It went
like a dream. No one else came out from Kulumadau.
I guess they thought we would like to be alone. We
walked about the place, and Terry had long talks with
his father, and then with his mother, and Cicely cling-
ing to him like a limpet when she wasn't hanging on
to me, too. She kept trying to drag me into the
group so that, as she quaintly explained, she could
love us together. And it was dreadful once when she
burst out on Terry with her inquiry as to whether he
wouldn't marry me so that we could all be together
ever after.

Terry laughed, but he didn't look at me. "You're
getting too big to say things like that now, Cis," he
admonished her. "Mother will have to give you lessons
in discretion."

There was only one worse moment for me, and that
was when Mr. Rossiter wondered aloud why Nev didn't
come out. "I think he might have put off his work for
a special occasion like this," he said. "I can't under-
stand him. After the splendid way he has behaved, too.
It's odd."

"I guess he couldn't come, father, or he would
have," Terry replied quietly. "Nev's the best chap in
the world." But involuntarily he glanced at me, and for

3i6 The Coconut Planter

the second time in my life I went a slow, painful
crimson.

I coloured up from the roots of my hair down even
my throat, and we were at table and I couldn't escape.
I had to sit there and face it out till it died away. I
don't think Mr. Rossiter noticed, but his wife did. I
saw her glance sharply at both of us, and her face
changed. I think in that moment she guessed there was
something more than bodily suffering in the new lines
of Terry's face.

I tried to leave him alone with his people, but they
wouldn't hear of me and Miss Brough staying by our-
selves, and I had to take them all over the place and
show them my native huts and the clearing that had
been done and my young trees planted out, and Mr.
Rossiter was enormously interested. He told Terry I
seemed a young woman of uncommon business ability.
Small Cicely repeated it to me.

And all the time the uncertainty of it all was driving
me mad. What was Terry going to do? What had
he and Nev agreed? Now and again I felt, if he didn't
tell me soon, I should go mad. And, a little before
sunset, after he and his father had been talking apart a
little, he came across to where the rest of us sat in a
group.

"Sunny, dear," he said directly to me, "will you
come for a walk? There are some things I want to
say to you."

I got up and went. I hardly knew whether I was
more relieved or terrified, and I felt sorry, too, as I saw
the jealousy that once more flashed across Mrs. Rossiter's
face when he unconsciously called me "dear." I guess
it must be hard to watch another woman hurting the
son you have borne and you can't do a thing to help
him.

But if she had only known, I was as unhappy as he.

The Coconut Planter 317

"Can't I come, too?" said the unconscious Cicely,
jumping up, eager to stay near her idols.

" No, you can't, puss," said Terry. "I've got a lot
of things to say to Miss Shale." Our eyes met as he
said "Miss Shale," and I think we both winced. "I
want to say good-bye to her."

"Oh," cried Cicely, dismayed, "isn't she coming with
us ? " But we had walked away.

"You're going then?" I said in a subdued tone
when we were out of earshot.

"Sunny," he said, "you can't expect me to stay, as
things are."

"No," I said bitterly. "I suppose it's too much to
expect you to forgive."

"Sunny!" Terry's voice was pained. "You know
you don't really mean that," he went on. "Dear, as I
told you, there isn't one tiny atom of blame for you in
my heart. Why, Sunny, don't you know I love you?
You're my wife and I love you. But it's just because of
both these things that I can't stay. Let's sit down a
bit," he added as we came to where one of my old
trunks was lying to rot. "There's a lot of things I've
been wanting to say to you, but I don't quite know
how to put them. In the first place, the beginning of
the trouble is my fault. I did wrong to get you to
marry me secretly. At the time I didn't see it, but,
no matter, it was wrong, and you've got to pay for your
deeds in this world, not your intentions. I put you in a
false position. You were my wife, but it wasn't to be
expected you could feel like an ordinary wife, as you
would have felt if I'd taken you and kept you as I
should have done; as I would have done if I hadn't
been a fool."

He paused a moment, and then resumed more
quietly.

"I say again from that blunder of mine the whole
u

3i8 The Coconut Planter

trouble has sprung. If I had kept you beside me, no
one would have come between us. I'm not wrong in
thinking that, am I, Sunny?"

"Oh, no, no," I said; "it was only because you were
dead "

"Yes, I know," said Terry. "But someone has
come between us. It isn't anybody's fault; it's just
fate. But because of that, and because I love you, I
can't take you at once. Perhaps I'm making a second
blunder. I've tried to think it out calmly, but I'm
human, Sunny, and I can't take you when all the time
you'd be wishing I was someone else, when every
time I laid a finger on you you'd have to set your teeth.
Yes, you would," he went on quickly as I tried to
speak; "you thought I didn't notice."

I watched the ground in silence. There was a big
honey-coloured ant trying to climb over my foot —
heaven knows what for, but he grew quite enraged every
time I shook him off.

"Nev and I talked it over," Terry went on, "and we
think it's best for us both to go away as you want to
stay on here. I shall go down with my folks to Sydney
to-morrow; they want me back with them a while, and
Nev will come by the next boat in three weeks. He
can't come to-morrow as he can't leave Mr. Carlyle in
the lurch without getting someone to take his place.
They are rather busy just now."

"Oh, Terry," I said, "I'll miss you."

"Why," he said, with as much cheerfulness as he
could muster, "that's what I'm hoping; and I'll come
back and see. I'm coming back, Sunny, when you've
had time to think it out. It's too raw and fresh now
for any of us to be able to see straight, and that's why
I think I'd best go away. I'll give you three months
to think it out and then I'll come up again. You'll have
had time to learn your feelings by then, and if you

The Coconut Planter 319

think you could — could stand me again, why, I'll stop,
or we'll go away together and try to get you used to me
gradually." Our eyes met. "I shouldn't expect too
much of you at once," he said.

I felt the tears well up. "Oh, Terry," I cried, "if

you knew how sorry I am, how sorry and ashamed "

And I flung myself face downwards on the ground and
sobbed and cried. But in a minute Terry had picked me
up and I finished my cry in his arms. They were very
strong and gentle, and for the first time since he came
back he kissed me, several times.

"Poor darling," he said. "Oh, you poor little girl.
Don't cry."

I gulped back my tears. "Terry," I said, "take me
with you now. I'll — I'll try to be w^hat you want. Take
me now."

But Terry untwined my arms and stood up with
decision. "No," he said, "that's what I'm afraid of,
that's why I'm going away. It's just a mood with you,
you're feeling pity and remorse, and I can't take you
on those terms. You might regret it to-morrow. No,
you must come to me, if you do come, with a steady
mind, for " — he bent and stared down into my eyes — "if
you come to me now, Sunny, I shall never let you go
again in life."

And he is gone. He went away with his people, for
the boat leaves early to-morrow morning, and there
would not be time for them to catch it unless they went
back to Kulumadau to-night.

And I have been sitting alone on my veranda, and
I know what Enone felt now, for something tells me
that I, too, shall be alone until I die.

CHAPTER LII

It's to-morrow again. One day more, three days
altogether, of awfulness. I wonder if the three whole
months before Terry comes back will go as slowly.
Three more months to work and plan here on my dear
little plantation, for, of course, when he comes back
I shall go with him. And every day till then I must
think about it and learn to drive the other wicked love
out of my heart and get it clean and empty for him
again.

For it is a wicked love now — now Terry is alive, and
I must never think of Nev again, but I can't help it,
for I know he is suffering, too. It's worse for him than
for any of us, for at least Terry has the hope that one
day he'll win me back, but Nev knows I'm lost to
him for good. If I could only suffer for him !
Because it's my fault really; if I had told him when
he started to care, it would never have hurt him like
this.

Billy came out to-day just after we knocked off work.
I managed to get through the day pretty well up to
sunset, and I don't think my poor boys had ever been
driven so hard in their lives; but I felt if I didn't go
myself and keep everyone else up to top pressure, I
should go crazy. And all day I dreaded the thought
of six o'clock, when I would have time to think. And,
as I climbed the slope to the house, I saw a faint trail
of smoke in the distance; it was the steamer with the
Rossiters and Terry on board.

320

The Coconut Planter 321

I wonder if Nev was watching it, too. Billy says he
went down to see them off. It's pitiful that he and
Terry should care for each other so, isn't it? It seems
to make it the more cruel.

And Billy knows. I think I'm glad he does, though
I couldn't have told him. As soon as he took my hand,
I saw by his eyes he knew. But Miss Brough was there,
and he couldn't say anything. He only gave my hand
a hard grip that somehow did me more good than any-
thing else had since Cicely's loving faith. I felt that
here was another who didn't care whether I was
wicked or good, but who loved me just because I
was me.

And after, when we were alone and Miss Brough
had gone inside to crochet, I said to him :

"Who told you, Billy?"

"Nev," he answered, not pretending to misunder-
stand. "I think he had to tell someone; he was nearly
crazy last night. I didn't know what to do with him.
He cried." Billy's voice was awed. "I've never seen a
man cry before."

"Oh, Billy," I said unsteadily, "it's awful for all of
us, but it can't be helped."

"Of course it can't," Billy agreed. "You're doing
the only thing you can, and he must stand it. He's all
right to-day. I mean he looks all right."

I forced up a weak little smile. "Thank you, Billy,"
I said, "but — but you'll do anything you can for him,
won't you ?"

"Yes," said Billy; and I knew that one word from
him meant more than sentences.

He didn't talk any more about Nev. He told me
about the Carfews and Bee and Adelaide. They are
thinking of going home in a few weeks now, and he
says they think I ought to go and stay with them a
little before they leave. They have scarcely any of them

322 The Coconut Planter

seen me, they complain, since I've been nursing Terry,
but I couldn't spare the time. I couldn't do every-
thing.

"Why don't you come into the township for a
bit," Bjlly said, " it'd distract your mind, wouldn't

it? Out here when you're lonely " And then

he realised. "Oh, I suppose you can't yet," he
added.

"Not till he's gone," I said; "but he's going by the
next boat."

"Yes," Billy agreed, "he said he was."

"And besides," I added, "it would be too hard just
yet not to let them see anything is the matter. I don't
want anyone to know."

"I think some of them do guess a bit," Billy said
slowly> " I think Mrs. Carlyle "

"The cat," I said. "I might have known it."

"And I've got a note for you from Miss Car-
few," he said, diving into his pocket. "She asked
me to give it to you when she knew I was coming
out."

"Dolly," I said, "how good of her." I unfolded it.
It was short and to the point, as Dolly always is ;

"Dear Sunny, dear, darling Sunny, — I wish I could
take half. May I come and stay with you, or would you
rather be alone ? Do let me come and help unless you'd
hate to have me about. Please do. With gallons of love
and a million kisses, from your always,

"Dolly."

The note helped, too. Friends do help, don't they?
"It's kind of her," I said; "she offers to come out to me.
Tell her not to come to-morrow; but the day after if she
likes, she may come for a little." I tried to muster up
a brave smile. "I'll be all right by then. I suppose

The Coconut Planter * 323

you think me a shabby little coward, Bill, but it's all
rather new and raw yet."

"I think," said Billy, "that you are what I have
always told you — the most wonderful and brave girl in
the world."

And that helped most of all. Life can never be quite
dreadful when one has friends like that.

CHAPTER LIII

I WENT into the township after all this week-end, but I
did not see Nev. Things were jogging along there in
just the same old way, except that now we have a new,
inexhaustible topic of conversation — the war. Still, as
we only get news every few weeks or so, it gets a bit
stale guessing the development before the arrival of the
next batch.

There were rumours of excitement round Port
Moresby lately. Talk has it the Germans intend to
attack our wireless station, and a mission boat that came
up yesterday says most of the women and children have
been sent down to Sydney and that the men are garrison-
ing the station and wirelessing for help. They think
it's mostly talk, though, for twice before some lunatic
has spread a report of Germans being seen in the
vicinity. The last was that 4,000 of them had landed
ten miles away from the Port, but there was no truth
in that.

However, some of the natives are getting stirred up,
and have murdered a couple of whites some twenty miles
north of the Port. But up where we are it all seems
very remote — as remote almost as Europe.

Some of the men wish they were a bit nearer the
centre of things. Mr. Ferguson and Dr. Ross were
both through the Boer war, and at times they feel as
if they'd like to go and join in. Mr. Ferguson said he
guessed it would only need a few patriotic speeches and
the sight of a column marching out to decide them,
but, as it is, he's almost pleased they are so far away

324

The Coconut Planter 325

from a recruiting station for, in a way, he doesn't want
to leave his work in the lurch again as he did before.
War is most horribly upsetting.

All the wool firms are going broke down South.
You see, they do so much trade with Austria and Ger-
many that it's bound to hit them hard. One firm that
before the war employed thirty-three clerks now has only
three. Oh, there's a lot of distress already. And, on
top of everything else, Australia has decided to have
one of her droughts. Rain's wanted desperately, and
money is tight just when it's most needed. There's
distress everywhere, but up here it sounds like a tale
from another planet.

But Dolly gets letters from her girl friends in
Sydney, and she says that they are all excited about it.
They are all sewing impossibly huge shirts and bed-
socks and bandages and stuff like that for the Red
Cross. Mr. Ferguson says it's awful waste of time,
for half of it won't reach the front. He said, at the
Boer war, there were at times just roomfuls of that sort
of thing waiting at the railway stations. It was eaten
by moth in the end, and never got to the front at all.
They couldn't transport it, every square inch was needed
for men and food.

But the girls seem to enjoy doing it. And then they
knit Balaclava caps for their own especial boys, and
spend the rest of the time flying round the camps having
tea with their pals and giving farewell parties for them
and getting engaged and married. Nearly every letter
she hears of fresh ones. So, perhaps, the war has its
uses.

I think she has got over her Erskine man now. She
hasn't exactly told me, but I believe he must have been
a little unpleasant when she changed her mind about
running away with him. I believe it gave her a new
light on his character.

326 The Coconut Planter

Another good thing the war has done is to keep Bee
and Adelaide up here longer. They had intended to go
by the next boat, for Bee has gathered all the material
she wants, but Adelaide is too frightened to stir. The
wildest rumours are still flying round, and the last we
heard was that German boats have been seen round Fiji.
That's not so far away that we can feel comfortable.

Still, it's nice to know our own warships are not
sitting down doing nothing. A man who came up by
the last boat says warships passed them nearly every
day flying north — up to Thursday Island, everybody
expects, but, of course, nobody knows. And the wire-
less was dismantled on their ship and, at every port they
entered they were boarded and searched by the military
authorities and given a signal to fly on entering port
or they would have been fired upon. And in Newcastle
they saw several German cargo boats held up, and the
day their boat left Sydney one tried to sneak out of the
Heads early in the morning, but she got a cannon
across her bows and had to turn tail and go back to
the wharf.

Oh, it was real exciting coming up, he said ; it felt
like war. He made it seem more real, too, as he talked.
He himself couldn't get any farther than Port Moresby
by the Matunga; she was turned off there by wireless
orders from headquarters in Melbourne, and he had to
come the rest of the way in a schooner.

How I wish I were a man to go and fight, too. But
doesn't it all seem a waste? There's such a lot to be
done in the world, in science and engineering and ex-
ploring and arts and everything, and here we go wasting
all this time and money on just killing each other.
Why, we might as well be Papuans; they can do that.

Only think if all this money the world is spending
had been put to building viaducts and reservoirs and
endowing research societies and hospitals

The Coconut Planter 327

I wonder if Nev is going to the war. I don't know
what he means to do, only that he is going away. I'm
glad he's going, of course; only at times 1 feel I can't
bear it. I must be very wicked when Terry trusts me
so. I don't love him any more; at least, I'm trying not
to; I don't think I do quite as much. I mustn't.

But if I could only see him, just once before he goes !
If he would only come now, this very minute, while I sit
here with my head in my hands thinking of him ! If
that speck of light moving down the bend of the path
were his pipe, but it's only a firefly. Oh, I want him, I
want him. God help me not to be a coward and to
remember Terry, but — I love him so

I haven't seen him since Terry went. We are both
playing the game, but sometimes Terry seems so far
away, as if his return were all a dream; and when I
remember that Nev is only five miles from me now, five

little miles and I cannot see or speak to him And

every day it comes nearer the day he will have to go,
and the miles will lengthen to hundreds, and he will
go and we shall never meet again.

I think I wouldn't mind so much if I could see him,
but I haven't seen him since the day I told him about
Terry, and I don't know how he feels about me. I
don't know whether he has forgiven me or whether my
deceit has killed his love, whether perhaps he thinks me
a worthless little liar. He called me a liar, didn't he?
If I could only be sure he isn't bitter ! But I am afraid
he may be. I ought to be glad if he hates me, I know;
it would make it easier for him, but, dear God, I can't
be. You know I can't.

And I have never heard from him, never a sign has
come of anger or forgiveness. I did think he would
have written me once before he went; that could not have
hurt Terry, and he will be going for ever. He might
say good-bye.

328 The Coconut Planter

Day after day I wait for a sign from him, but it
never comes, and every time I see a strange native turn
down the path I catch my heart, wondering if it will be
his letter •

But it never is, and — and I must go to work now;
my boys are waiting.

CHAPTER LIV

The boat leaves to-morrow.

He can't go without saying good-bye to me. He
can't. It's cruel, wicked. I think the whole world is
cruel. Is God cruel, too, or how can He bear to see
us suffer like this? Sometimes I think He must like to
see us crying, or why is there so much pain in life? I
think there's more pain than happiness on the whole.
Oh, Nev, Nev, say good-bye to me; we can't part like
this. If he can bear to go without one last word, he
can't care as much as I do.

Oh, what's the use of words? I can't say how I
feel. I only know my throat aches and aches because
I can't cry, and I wish I could die. Perhaps God will
let me yet, only I don't think just a broken heart can
kill.

Why, I'm crying — how strange! There are tears
dropping down on the paper as I write, but I don't feel
as if it were me at all. I am not crying. I am sitting
back watching, and I am hard and cold, frozen into one
dreadful agony. Oh, Nev, Nev. , . .

And yet I shall get over it, I suppose, just as I got
over Terry ; I felt like this when he went away. How
funny it is to remember ! I wonder if God thinks it
funny, too. And the tears that don't seem mine are
still splashing on my hand as I write, but I am writing
quite steadily. I am very calm. I must keep doing
something; if I stopped and let myself think ... I
wonder, should I kill myself? I believe I am too
sensible for that. It's funny to feel sensible when you

329

330 The Coconut Planter

are bleeding hurt like I am, but, you see, I don't believe
death means forgetfulness. Ah I if I did ; then I
think

It's strange how small an impress the soul makes on
the body. I looked at my face in the glass just now
and it is little different, and I — why can't I die? Oh,
God, why can't I? I can remember Miss Conway told
me — it was when Terry went away — that a young girl
like me had no right to be unhappy ; she told me to wait
till I was old enough to have some real troubles . . .
and I didn't even smile.

Why, it's only the young who can be really un-
happy; when you are old you are a little tired of pain,
you get dulled to it, and you see the futility of it all.
Life is so short. Why waste it in suffering? But,
when you are young, you are so very much alive that
every nerve answers to it with all the strength of youth.
That is why you do not hear of many old people dying
by their own hand. They know death comes soon
enough anyway. But when you are young, the years
seem to stretch so far ahead, such an infinity of them,
with every day the keen anguish of it biting deeper and
wider. . . . There seems such a lot of life ahead to
bear, and it's the second time I have had to say good-
bye to love. Why is it, God — have I been very wicked
that I am punished so? Oh, I am so tired of pain.
Dear God, have mercy. ... I am so very tired. . . .

Oh, Nev, come to me. Come for one last good-bye
and then, perhaps, I will be resigned. Father, Thy will
be No, I can't say it, I — not unless he comes.

Life is very hard when you are young. And it is
eight o'clock. He can't be coming now.

CHAPTER LV

I THINK I must be the wickedest girl in the world, for
even if I haven't actually done wrong I meant to, and
it's almost the same thing.

I tried to run away with Nev.

I don't know now how I could have, but I think I
went nearly mad that last night when I thought he
wasn't going to say good-bye. I don't think I ever
knew what restlessness meant before. I could not keep
still. I sat down once and brought all my wdll to bear.
I vowed I would not move from the chair for five whole
minutes, and I didn't, but it was torture.

And then I gave it up and wandered about the place.
Little Miss Brough watched me with a world of love in
her small, faded eyes. I think she guesses sometiiing,
but I can't talk to her about it. I know she loves me
and would sympathise, but she loves Terry best. She
likes Nev, but she adores Terry, and so, you see, she
couldn't understand.

So all I could do was walk up and down and round
and back, saying under my breath, "You shall nut cry,
you little coward; you shan't cry."

It was nearly nine when he came. He and Billy
came out together round the bend of the path in the
most natural way, just as they used, and we said "Good
evening " just the same way. It's funny how ordinarily
you behave when you feel anything but ordinary. It
wasn't as if Billy didn't know either, but somehow we
all pretended.

Nev said :

33'

332 The Coconut Planter

"I just ran out to say good-bye to you. I'm off to
Sydney to-morrow ; so, as Bill said he was coming out,
I thought I'd trot along, too, for half an hour."

"I'm glad you did," I replied in the same way.

"How are the coconuts?" Nev asked.

"Splendid," I said. "Mr. Ferguson says they are as
healthy as I could wish. I've got more planted than I
expected. My boys are working awfully well."

We went on talking desultorily like this, and all the
time we felt what a ghastly farce it was we were keeping
up. Every time I looked at Nev I winced — he seemed
so much thinner and smaller and there were queer hurt
lines under his eyes. How he must be suffering ! And
we talked of coconuts I

And then Billy took pity on us, I think, and went
inside to Miss Brough. She is still staying with me;
she is going to live with me for good. I want her to.
Somehow I feel now as if I can't bear the thought of
being alone, and she would rather live with me than
with Mrs. Carlyle now she knows I really want her
and am not doing it out of kindness. And she is so
happy about it; it does me good to look at her.

After Billy had gone, we didn't say anything.
Somehow, without him there to play up to, we couldn't
pretend any longer, and at last Nev said in a queer,
stifled kind of voice :

"Sunny, I had to come. I — it's been hell. I had
to come."

"I prayed you would," I answered before I knew.

And then he turned and looked at me through the
shadows. "Can't you forget either?" he said.

"Forget ! " I said. "Oh, Nev, already ! "

And then, after a little, he stood up with an air of
recklessness. "Well, why should we anyway?" he
said. "You're breaking your heart and I mine, and
why should we? It's not doing anyone good. Terry's

The Coconut Planter 333

left you to me and, by God, I'll take you. Sunny," he
caught my arm and drew me near him, "we'll go away
together. Dare you — with me ? "

"Oh, Nev," I whispered. "But— Terry."

He frowned as if in pain. "I know," he said. "I'm
a beast, but, oh Sunny, he'll forgive us. I love ,you
so. It's the only thing to do. He'll divorce you and
then it will be all right. Terry will understand. It will
hit him hard, but it's better for one of us to be miserable
than all three. As it is, what good do we do him ? He
won't have you himself unless you love him again, and
you'll love me as long as I live, as long as I live to
make you. Isn't it true?"

I hid my face on his shoulder. "You know it's
true," I said, even while the hateful words, "Terry will
divorce you," ran in my ears. Had I sunk as low as
that? I trembled with shame, and yet I did not move
out of his arm.

"We can't go on like this," he went on, as if
arguing to convince himself. "We're treating him
rottenly, but we've tried, and it's stronger than we. I
shouldn't have stayed after him, but Carlyle wouldn't
let me go. It's fate. Sunny."

I stood there passive. I knew I should do what he
said, but I didn't seem able to think or plan. I waited.

"You must catch the boat to-morrow, too," he said
quickly. "Say that you have had news that makes it
important you should go to Sydney at once. Any
excuse will do to get away from here, and it will be
easy enough once we get down. You're coming.
Sunny ? " He was holding both my hands.

"Yes," I said, "I suppose I'm coming; but, oh
Nev" — my voice quivered — "what beasts we are being
to Terry."

Nev let me go and gripped the veranda rail. " I
know," he said, "but it can't be helped. I've been

v

334 The Coconut Planter

fighting it for three weeks and it's stronger than us,
Sunny."

We both stared out at the blackness side by side,
and for a while neither spoke. I was trying to realise
that I was looking the last on my coconut land, my
dear little plantation where I had worked so hard and
where I had been so happy. For I could never come
back here again, even if Nev married me. I could never
again face these kind, good people, a girl forsworn, a
wife who had betrayed a generous heart, a woman
divorced. At the terrible word I shivered again, but I
knew, if he bade me, I should go.

We heard a chair pushed back. Billy was coming
out again, and at the sound Nev dropped over the rail
to the ground.

"I can't wait for Billy now," he said; "I couldn't
walk back with him after this. Tell him I've gone
ahead; he can follow when he likes. He's a decent
little chap; he'll understand."

As he vanished in the shadows, Billy was beside me.

"Nev's gone?" he said in his matter-of-fact little
way.

I nodded; I still felt too queer to speak.

He sat for a while with his chin in his hands watch-
ing me. I felt his gaze, and from inside the click of the
cotton against the crochet needle came out with madden-
ing faintness. And then Billy spoke, still in his quiet,
unemotional way.

"You're not going with him, are you, Cynthia?"

I almost jumped. "How — how did you guess?" I
stammered. I never thought of evasion; Billy's tone
was too positive.

"I've thought that was what he had in his mind all
day," Billy replied soberly. "Maybe, it's because —
because " — he moved uneasily and the words came with
effort — "I love you that I can feel about things that

The Coconut Planter 335

touch you. Thai's why I said I'd come with him
to-night when he said he was coming out. He didn't
want me to."

"Oh, why did you leave us alone, Billy?" I said.
"Why didn't you stay?"

"Well," said Billy, "I had to give him his chance;
it was only fair. Besides, he'd have managed it some-
way once he'd made up his mind; a man always does.
But I guessed you'd be strong enough for both of you."

I hung my head, and then anger came on the heels
of my shame. Who was this bit of a boy to sit in
judgment on me? "I wish, Billy," I said with im-
patience, "you wouldn't set up such a ridiculously high
standard for me to live up to. I've told you before
I'm not the kind of girl you think. I can do mean
and wicked things the same as everyone else. It's
absurd to expect me to live up to your ideal."

I spoke almost savagely, but Billy's calm was
unshaken.

"No, it isn't," he said; "you do. I suppose you can
do mean things sometimes, but only if they're little.
When it comes to anything that really matters, it's the
you I know about comes on top. You couldn't do but
right in anything really big."

"Oh, Billy," I said, all my anger melted, "please
don't." But he went on :

"I guess, when he talked, you felt you'd go, but I
know W'hen it comes to the point you won't really.
Besides, you'd both feel so mean about it soon. You
couldn't help it when they are such friends. He'd hate
you almost at times for having made him shabby to
his pal."

"Billy, hold your tongue," I cried passionately, but
every word he spoke was being dinted in on my brain.
I knew it was true, so clearly, horribly true. Once his
passion for me had blunted, Nev might grow to hate

336 The Coconut Planter

me. He had known and loved Terry over twenty years;
he had not known me as many months. Which love
would best stand twenty years more ?

I shivered, but Billy was silent ; he had said his say.
I sighed and turned to him.

"I guess you're right," I said.

His face lit up for a moment, and then settled back
to his usual stolid calm. "I knew you wouldn't do it,"
he said. "Shall I tell him or will you write a note?"

"I'll write a note," I said. "He mightn't believe
you. Don't give it to him till he's on board; he'll have
to go then and— and he'll have time to see it like — like
we do."

Billy waited till I had written saying I could not
face it, and took the note in silence.

"Tell him I — I " I couldn't think of a message that
would comfort him and yet be loyal. "Oh, Billy," I
added with a dry sob, "how cruel I seem. He loves me
and I can give him nothing."

Billy looked at me queerly. "At least," he said,
"he's kissed you." And he turned and went down the
path.

My dear, loyal, loving little Billy. Yes, I suppose it
is something for Nev to know he counts.

And even now I wonder whether, perhaps, the
biggest reason, bigger even than Billy's faith in me,
was that, at the back of my mind, I knew he spoke the
truth. Nev in time would grow to hate me, and that
would be worse than this — if anything in the world
could be worse.

CHAPTER LVI

Terry has written to me. He and Nev are together
again and they are going to the war. It's all dreadful,
but I can't feel any worse; I think I have grown numb
to pain ; there is a point beyond which you cannot suffer
more.

They are dicing with fate for me ; they are playing
for death, and the one that wins will come back to me.
That is what it amounts to, though Terry put it more
delicately than that, but it means the same. Oh, I can't
bear it. I can't. They are making me a murderess, for
I know they mean that one of them shall die. How
can life be so hard. For all my days I shall have blood
on my hands, and the blood of a man I love, for I love
them both.

This is what Terry wrote :

"I don't suppose you will be surprised to hear we
have volunteered. Britain's rows are ours and we've all
got to help. I think it's up to most of us who haven't
any strong ties to lend a hand. Nev and I are on the
same boat. They were glad to get both of us ; engineers
and wireless men are always useful — wireless especially,
though Nev would put the especially on the other foot.

"We're on the submarine depot ship, and are going
the Lord knows where under sealed orders. Suspicion
points to the idea we're going to harass the Germans in
their Pacific possessions. News came through yesterday
that the New Zealanders have taken Samoa for a start.
I will let you know from time to time, as opportunity

337

338 The Coconut Planter

affords, how we are getting on. I write for both of us,
as Nev says he will not. He has told me about the night
he lost his head, Sunny, and I don't want you to worry
about it. That's why I'm mentioning it; I thought it
might worry you wondering whether I knew or not.

"Don't ! Because I expected something of the kind
would happen when I left you both behind; it would
have been beyond human endurance for you not to feel
tempted. Maybe, I shouldn't have gone away before
him. If things had gone wrong, I should have felt it
was half my fault, but I had to give Nev his chance.
I'm glad he didn't take it. And we are pals still. I
thought you'd be glad to know that. Not even you can
spoil things for us, and that helps us both.

"I hope you are feeling happier. Don't worry your
head about us more than you can help. Things are
going to be exciting, we hope, and when a man's fight-
ing it takes his mind off his private troubles. When the
war's over one of us will come back to you."

One of them. That's the dreadful part. They are
leaving it to Fate to decide which. And I must wait —
and wait— for a lover and a ghost. They will always
be together. Oh, can't they see how impossible they
are making it for me ? Do they think I can be fought
for like this?

But they are gone already. What can I do except
pray. And will God listen to anyone as bad as me,
who am sending a man to death ?

CHAPTER LVII

Still Fate is holding her blow. It is two months
later now, and I have had another letter from Terry —
this time from German New Guinea. It seems strange
to think they are so near.

My boy brought it this afternoon from Kulumadau
a little before sunset. I was alone in the house, but I
could not look at it down there. Somehow I felt I
wanted to be in the open air when I read it. So, holding
it tightly in my hand, I climbed up the last hill by my
clearing from where I can see right away down over
Kulumadau even to the sea. The sun was settling on
cushions of cloud brocade, crimson and orange the
pattern ran, and their fringed ends dipped in the water
below.

It was very still on the hilltop. Once a kingfisher
drove past in a flutter of blue and gold, but even the
insects seemed silent. And then I opened the letter.
For one moment my heart seemed to stop. Terry must
be safe, for it was his writing on the envelope, but
Nev. . . . Suppose Nev. . . . Then I read :

"Dear Sunny, —

"Nev and I are all right still." . . .

I bent my head on my knees and said: "Thank
God ! Oh, thank God ! " There was no blood on my
hands yet. And for a minute I felt so happy I couldn't
read any further.

339

340 The Coconut Planter

"... We seem to have had all the luck. Nev has
not been hurt at all, and I have only had a wound in
the leg. I was rather bad for a while, for the Germans
are using dum-dum bullets, and it made a pretty mess
up. I should have bled to death if Nev hadn't been
near me. He saw me hit, and stayed behind to fix up
a kind of tourniquet, and the doctor says it saved me.
I'm about right again now.

"This is written from Rabaul. We have had a
number of small adventures since I wrote you last. We
called in at Port Moresby after we left Newcastle, where
I sent you my last letter, and there received instructions
to proceed to German New Guinea. You never saw
anything like the old scrapheap we are on, Sunny; she's
about thirty years not out, and she has three noticeable
points. First, she automatically breaks down every
time we put to sea; second, she can easily do four knots
per hour — easily ; third, she's a champion roller, she
would make a ship's cat feel squeamish.

"We gave the Admiralty quite a scare going up.
Owing to her little breakdown habit we got kind of lost,
and didn't turn up at Wallace Island, as arranged, with
the rest of the convoy. They thought we'd been meet-
ing the Emdcn. However, we went on, and arrived at
Rabaul ahead of the rest. We took possession Friday
morning. The others didn't arrive till Saturday after-
noon. We took it with a surprise, and smashed up the
post and telegraph office before the Germans knew what
we were doing.

"Our orders were to put all wireless stations round
about out of action. We had a small dust-up over the
one at Herbertshohe. I suppose by now you've read
about it in the papers. The Germans behaved in their
usual fashion. When we landed at the wharf they
told us no resistance would be offered, but our com-
mander wasn't taking any chances, and it was as well

The Coconut Planter 341

he was cautious, for, at the second mile, we found our-
selves ambushed. They were entrenched at right angles
to the road, and they had likewise posted a lot of their
niggers in the trees alongside to snipe at us and keep
us distracted.

"We took the trenches with the bayonet, and it was
there I got my bullet in the leg. It was a rummy
sensation. Those dum-dums do plough up some; you
could have put a young coconut in the gash it left.

"They didn't surrender the wireless station after all.
We gave them twenty-four hours before we started
shelling, but they blew it up in the meantime, and
cleared out. I don't blame them; I'd have done the
same myself, and as long as the wireless was rendered
useless that was the main thing.

"It's a pity, though, they don't teach our naval
lieutenants a bit about the working of a wireless. Three
stations, the Narau, Kaba Kaul, and Yap stations have
been pretty well reduced to matchwood, and they cost
two years to build and about ;^300,ooo. Of course they
had to be silenced ; but, when you know how simple a
thing it is to put a station out of action without wasting
anything, it annoys you. I had the luck to meet the
chap from the Sydney who went to silence the Anguar
plant, and I gave him a few pointers. I heard after
that he'd dismantled the high frequency machine all
right, and taken it back to Rabaul without damaging
anything.

"Our worst loss, as you must know by now, is the
disappearance of the submarine AEi. We all feel
horribly gloomy about her, as there were thirty-five men
aboard, and they all lived and messed with us — we
are the parent ship for the submarines — and they were
most of them such decent chaps. It seems hard to
disappear like that without even a fight for it.

"I don't think there's anything more special to tell

342 The Coconut Planter

you, Sunny. The Governor has surrendered, and the
British flag was hoisted four days ago, and the pro-
clamation read. They read a second one in pidgin
EngHsh for the natives. I couldn't help feeling proud
when the Union Jack ran up the staff, and the
proclamation stated : ' You look him new fellow flag.
You savvy him. He belong British English. He more
better than other fellow.' But all the same, I did a
chuckle at the back of my throat; you wouldn't call us
a modest nation exactly, would you ?

"At present, I'm engaged in building a wireless in-
stalment at the ex-Governor's house for communication
with Port Moresby. It's pretty solid work. Lieutenant
Monroe erected a hundred-foot mast for us to-day.
We've taken the Governor's bedroom for an instrument
room, and the sergeant, who is quartered in the drawing-
room, entertains us with music while we work. He's a
dab on the piano.

"It's all quite quiet now, and I don't know that we
will be here much longer. Nev and I want, if we can,
to get down to Sydney and into one of the contingents
bound for the front, or wherever they are bound for. No
one seems to have any idea whether it's Europe, India,
Egypt, or to help quell the Boer disaffection.

"As far as we've heard, the first haven't gone yet.
If we are too late to join them we shall go to England
on our own hook and enlist there ; though, of course,
we'd rather go w'ith our own fellows. In any case, I'm
afraid it will be much more than the three months before
you see us again ; but some day one of us will come
back. God knows which. Till then, Sunny, remember
we both love you. I can't say more; it wouldn't be
fair to Nev, as he won't write. But we think of you
every day, and I can almost fancy I see you at times
with your notebook and that absurd small whip down
among your coconuts. I'm glad you have them; they

The Coconut Planter 343

win give you an interest, and keep you from worrying.
You mustn't worry, you know; we are happy enough.
At any rate, we are very busy, and that's the next best
thing.

"I must stop now; Nev says the post is closing.
Good-bye, little girl. Two hearts come with this. I
don't know when I shall be able to write again.

"Terry."

The crimson had died out of the sky, and it was
grey; against it my tiny palms outlined themselves with
youthful arrogance. My coconuts — yes, I still have my
coconuts. And they are going to Europe, where men
are being mown down by thousands and tens of
thousands — chronicled not as men but as regiments,
battalions

And I have my coconuts ! Oh, Terry — Nev

Oh God !

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